Working days needed to afford an iPhone XS

This is an archived report. The latest ranking is available here.

On 12th of September Apple Inc. introduced their latest products, including the most expensive smartphone in the company’s history—iPhone XS Max.

The Analysis Department of Picodi decided to check how many days the Filipinos and citizens from other countries have to work to afford the novelty from Apple. The results of our research are based on iPhone XS 64Gb prices in various countries and official statistic data about average wages in each of them.

You could suppose that the best average wage/price ratio would be in the US—the most important market of Apple. However, it turns out that the ones who would be able to afford Apple’s newest product are people in the developed countries and the UAE. For example, an average Swiss would have to work 5.1 days, the citizens of Luxembourg—less than 7 days, and Norwegians—7 and a half day. Among the countries where you have to work the least amount of days are also United Arab Emirates—money earned for 7.6 days are enough to buy the newest iPhone. In the US, on the other hand, one would have to work 8.4 days.

It’s already known that in the Philippines the latest iPhone will cost around 65000 pesos. Under the assumption that average gross wage in the Philippines—according to data from Philippine Statistics Authority—amounts to 427.76 pesos per day, it would take 156.6 days for an average Filipino to earn enough to buy the new iPhone. Of course assuming that the other living costs would be zero. It’s the longest time among the countries considered in the research.

It won’t be so easy also in Pakistan—with the local earnings and prices an average Pakistani would have to work over 88 days.

Although the new iPhone can be a rather expensive gadget, it is possible to buy it cheaper through official resellers. All you have to do is sign up to Picodi.com and activate cashback while shopping in stores such as Galleon, Lazada and Shopee.

Methodology

This analysis was based on the official prices of iPhone XS 64 GB in 42 countries and publicly available data about average wages in those countries for the year 2017 or the last period accessible.

Public use

Do you want to share our statistics? You can freely use data and infographics presented in the text for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. We only ask to indicate the author of the research (Picodi.com) with the link to this website.