Apple’s iPhone 7 has gone on pre-order around the world, but customers in the UK have woken up to a very real-world impact of the Brexit referendum: the iPhone 7 as well as the iPad line is more expensive than ever.
Pre-orders for Apple’s latest smartphone, which is now waterproof and no longer has a headphone socket, went live across the world at 8.01am UK time, meaning that many eager buyers in countries to the west of the Prime Meridian stayed up late into the night.
While the base-level 4.7in iPhone 7 now has twice the storage, at 32GB, of the starting iPhone 6S from 2015, it also rose in price by £40, costing buyers £599 without a mobile phone contract. The US price of the iPhone 7 remained steady at $649.
The starting price of the larger 5.5in iPhone 7 Plus was also more expensive than 2015’s iPhone 6S Plus. The cheapest iPhone 7 model with 32GB of storage was hiked up by £100, with a cost of £719 in the UK. It also saw a $20 increase in the US, costing from $769.
The standard iPhone 7 will cost £60 more than its predecessor. The $ price didn't rise. Consumers now starting to feel adverse impact of ↓£
— Samuel Tombs (@samueltombs) September 8, 2016
Some of the company’s other products, including the Apple Pencil and the company’s sports bands for the Apple Watch, also increased in price by £20 and £10 respectively in the UK with no new revisions. The iPad Pro, despite having its storage doubled and all but the cheapest versions gaining a price cut in the US of between $50 and $100 depending on model, increased in price by £50.
Apple has not stated why it has increased prices, other than that it adjust prices based on currency fluctuations and other factors, but it is not the first technology company to do so in recent weeks. Chinese smartphone company OnePlus raised the price of its latest smartphone, the OnePlus 3, by £20 – a 6.5% rise in the price of the phone – in July.
“The sharp drop witnessed in the currency markets following the Brexit decision has forced us to re-evaluate the OnePlus 3’s pricing in the UK at a time of significant demand,” a spokesperson for OnePlus said at the time.
Dell also put in place a blanket 10% rise in prices for the UK, while HP increased prices as the pound sunk against the dollar.
The issue being seen by shoppers in the UK is caused by the fall of the pound against the US dollar after the Brexit referendum. US technology firms, including Apple, Dell, and HP, account in US dollars, which means their pricing of products, services and costs associated with their supply are all relative to the US dollar.
After a sharp plummet immediately after the referendum result, the pound has stayed more steady against the US dollar, but still has potential to fall further and is unlikely to rebound in the near future. Even if it does rebound against the US dollar, it is unlikely the price of goods such as smartphones sold by US companies will decrease dramatically, meaning UK consumers are stuck paying more for technology products than a year ago.
