This week, if your feed looks anything like mine, it has probably been awash with news of Apple‘s new iPhones. iPhone launches are always exciting (I mean, if you’re into incremental updates, largely similar designs and Apple playing catch up), so it’s not surprising that everyone wants a piece of your attention.
Amidst all that coverage, there is one big question that still looms overhead: How much will it cost in Malaysia? How much of my hard earned, ever depreciating Ringgits will I have to drop to get my hands on the latest and greatest from Apple?
Well, we were wondering too so we did the one thing I got into writing to escape from — math. We looked at the past pricing trends, compared them with our neighbours down south and cross referenced them with the math our colleagues did over at TheSkop. And by “we did the math” I mean Alex did the math, I just stood next to him and pursed my lips.
But enough talk! Here’s what we think the new iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X will cost when they go on sale in Malaysia.
Let’s look at what we already know
First, we needed to establish a base line. To do that we looked at the pricing options we already knew and chose Singapore because we figured our currency and theirs have been a little more stable than our currency against the US Dollar. It is also worth noting that Apple did not revise the iPhone 7’s pricing until the iPhone 8 came out.
Here’s what every new iPhone costs in Singapore:
And here’s the launch price for every iPhone 7 in Singapore and Malaysia:
Based on that information, this is how much we think the new iPhones will cost in Malaysia:
This is how we calculated
From the tables attached above, we can tell that the Singaporean price for the iPhone 7 256GB and the iPhone 8 256GB are exactly the same, at SGD1,388. From there, we can fairly safely assume that this price will also be the same here in Malaysia which would mean that the iPhone 8 256GB will be priced at RM4,199. This, is our baseline.
From there, we calculated the difference in prices between each variant in the Singaporean price range for the iPhone 7, which gave us a value of SGD170 between storage variants and SGD200 between the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
Comparing that to the price differences between iPhone 7 variants in Malaysia, we figured out that the conversion rate for the price difference is about 3X (SGD1 = RM3).
Now, we used what we learned and applied that to Singapore’s pricing of the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X. In Singapore, the difference between iPhone 8 variants is SGD240, while the difference between the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus is SGD160.
Multiplying that by 3 and adjusting the prices so that the final prices match the pricing scheme we see from Malaysia (ending in 99, for example) we figured that the difference in Malaysia between the iPhone 8 storage variants are about RM700 while the price difference between the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus worked out to about RM500. We also multiplied the difference in Singaporean price between the iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone X, bringing us to a whopping RM1,000 in difference.
We’re fairly confident, based on the pricing trend, that this will be the price for the upcoming iPhone devices…unless our currency takes a nosedive over the next couple of days. In any case, these are far from anything official, so take it as more of a guideline than a hard confirmation on how much the new iPhones will cost.
As you can see, the new iPhones will definitely be more expensive in Malaysia than if you directly convert their price in USD. However, it will still be cheaper than if you convert their price in SGD.
How soon can you get it?
We reckon that it could come out as early as next month. Apple has been steadily reducing its Malaysian roll-out time over the years. The iPhone 7, for example, was announced on the 13th of September 2016 and we could officially buy it in stores nationwide on the 14th of October — only 31 days from launch.
UPDATE: The iPhone 8 will be officially available in Malaysia on 20 October.
What do you guys think of our math? Let us know in the comments below. Also tell us your predictions for the prices for the upcoming iPhones!
