Apple opens its first South American store in Brazil

Himanshu Arora

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Apple on Saturday inaugurated its first Latin American store in Brazil. Located in the shopping Village Mall in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, the store witnessed a grand inauguration with more than 1,700 shoppers standing in a queue for hours on its opening day.

This is a pivotal move by Apple as Brazil has the world’s seventh largest GDP and is one of the world's fastest-growing smartphone markets. With the country set to host the World Cup this summer and the Olympics in 2016, the timing couldn't have been better.

In Brazil, one of the biggest problems that the Cupertino-based company faces is the high cost of its products. There is no denying that Apple's products are already pricey, but this coupled with Brazil's steep import tariffs, makes them even more costly. Apple's iPhone 5s price in Brazil is $1,174 but the same phone sells for $649 in the US. Similarly, the iPad 2 is available in Brazil for $566, which is a hefty premium over the US price of $399.

In an effort to be more cost competitive, the company has already lowered the prices of some of its phones in Brazil. It has also worked with Foxconn to begin manufacturing some of its products in the country starting last year. Despite of all the efforts, Apple products in Brazil continue to be much more expensive than in the US. In fact, Apple iPhones in Brazil are the highest priced in the world.

According to 2012 statistics, Apple in Brazil is far behind Samsung and LG in smartphone sales, but if this move turns out to be successful, the iPhone maker may look forward to open more stores in South America.

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Gotta love those import tariffs. Taking competition out of your price range since... Well, since over two thousand years!
 
'the company has already lowered the prices of some of its phones'
**Gasp** This is heresy!!! Phew, OK, I just noticed the word 'some' in the sentence, they could be referring to the 3 & 3GS models but surely not the later overpriced things because they're still trying to rob the unsuspecting/uninformed consumer.
 
I'm from Brasil but been living in the US since 2000, those import tax the brazilian government put on products are just plain robbery. It's retarded and it will never change unless the population do something about it, which it is very unlikely, nowadays when we have information at our fingertips I just don't understand why they just won't do something about it!
 
I just don't understand why they just won't do something about it!
In a practical sense, those high prices only affect those in middle class range. Since poor people only have money to buy food and barely pay bills; and rich people have enough money to go abroad and bring all their gadgets from somewhere else.
Middle class people (me) are always asking their rich friends to smug something in their luggage when they travel. But eventually, we end up paying the Brazilian price for the things no one will bring for us.
 
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