iPhone 4 price in India...

I have been itching to lay my hands on the iPhone 4.

But Apple's India pricing generally leaves me feeling very uncomfortable.

I have been trying to estimate what they are likely to set as the price for the iPhone 4.

The simplest way of doing this, I felt, was to see prices of other similar Apple products worldwide with those in India and work out some sort of "Apple exchange rate"(I call it that because Apple products in India are priced much higher than what they would be if one directly converted using the exchange rate. I am not sure whether its custom duties or arrogance or both)

Unfortunately, I cannot use the iPhone 3GS as a reference because Apple doesn't mention an official price for it on their India website. I need something which has readily available India and international prices.

The iPod Touch, 4th generation, is a good fit in that respect.

So I went ahead, comparing prices:

iPod Touch	USD	HKD	SGD	GBP	INR
8 GB	229	1788	328	189	15400
32 GB	299	2288	428	249	19900
64 GB	399	3088	588	329	25900

Dividing the INR price by the corresponding foreign currency price and averaging it allows me to work out the "Apple exchange rate" versus the actual exchange rate. Here are the rounded figures:

	Actual Rate	Apple Rate
USD-INR	46.5	66
GBP-INR	72	80
HKD-INR	6	8.5
SGD-INR	35	46

A glance tells me that Apple is kindest when it comes to Hong Kong, as far as pricing is concerned. The UK suffers the most.

Next step, work out the implied India iPhone 4 pricing using actual and Apple exchange rates. I have excluded the US since there is no non-contract iPhone 4 price available.

iPhone version	HKD	GBP	SGD
16 GB	4988	499	888
32 GB	5888	599	1048
INR -Actual Exchange Rates			INR - Apple Exchange Rates
HKD	GBP	SGD	HKD	GBP	SGD	Likely Price
29928	35928	31080	42398	39920	40848	41000
35328	43128	36680	50048	47920	48208	49000

So the iPhones in India may be priced at 41k and 49k respectively. Startling differences here! If I were to believe in this study, buying the iPhone from Hong Kong, or even Singapore, makes a lot of sense. Theres a site called http://www.shopyourworld.com/shop/ which claims to ship iPhones from the UK; they are better off trying to get it from HK / Singapore (provided they have the necessary contacts)! Its an unlocked version that you get there (unlike the US) so no fuss about that either. So grab hold of that friend whos going to HK on a weekend trip, and save 11000 rupees! Of course, getting it into India is the tricky part. What customs duty will be applicable? I am honestly not aware. But I do know it will be difficult to stomach the ignominy of shelling out 41k for an iPhone 4 in India, knowing that the same thing costs 30k in the HK (and less than 41k throughout most of the world)

Why make Indians pay more, Mr Jobs?