iPhone Index 2024: How Many Days M’sians Need to Work to Afford It

Picodi Malaysia analysts juxtaposed the local iPhone 16 Pro (128 GB) prices with average earnings and calculated the iPhone Index, which is the price of the smartphone expressed in man-days.

In Malaysia, the basic version of the flagship, iPhone 16 Pro (128 GB), was priced at RM 4,999 (RM 500 less than last year).

Why is the price in Malaysia not an equivalent of $999?

The price shown during the showcase does not include the sales tax. At that price, the iPhone can be bought only in four states in the US. In other states, state and local sales tax is added to the price (9.55% at most). In Malaysia, the goods and services tax amounts to 5%.

According to the latest Numbeo data, the average wage in Malaysia is RM 4150 net monthly. This means that an average M’sian needs 25.3 man-days in order to purchase the iPhone 16 Pro, provided that all the money earned is saved for this purpose. Compared to the last year, the number of man-days required decreased by 5.4 days.

This is what the iPhone Index looked like in Malaysia in the last 7 years:

• 2018 – 41.3 days
• 2019 – 30.1 days
• 2020 – 29.1 days
• 2021 – 30.3 days
• 2022 – 29.2 days
• 2023 – 30.7 days
• 2024 – 25.3 days

Switzerland is the leader of our ranking—the average Swiss needs only 4 man-days in order to afford the newest iPhone. An average American needs 5.1 days, and an average Australian and Singaporean—5.7 days.

Among the countries included in our ranking, the worst result was noted in Türkiye, where the newest iPhone requires 72.9 days of work. The second and third-worst place in this ranking belongs to the Philippines and Brazil—68.8 and 68.6 man-days respectively.

Methodology and sources

iPhone Index is an annual index of iPhone price-to-wage ratios, carried out by Picodi.com since 2018.

iPhone Index 2024 was calculated based on the official prices of the iPhone 16 Pro (128 GB), presented either by the local branches of Apple or by authorised sellers. The average wages were taken from the official statistics office’s websites and are up-to-date as of the release of the iPhone in each country. Net wages were obtained through salary calculators. Monthly wages were divided by 21—the average number of working days in a month. In countries, where statistics offices use weekly rates, the wages were divided by 5.

All the data, along with the sources in the form of a spreadsheet can be found here.

Public Use

The data presented in the ‘iPhone Index’, including the infographics, can be used freely for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. We only ask you to credit the author of the research (Picodi.com) with a link to this subpage.