İnstitute of Graduate Studies - lisansustu@gelisim.edu.tr

Economics And Finance (Master) (Non Thesis)








 2022 iPhone index: How many days should you work in which country to buy a latest model iPhone?


After the introduction of the iPhone 14, the new model of the iPhone series of the world's giant technology company Apple, the price of the phone was a matter of curiosity. While the sales price of the iPhone 14 Pro in Turkey was announced as 39 thousand 999 liras, it was announced that the iPhone 14 Pro Max would be sold at 43 thousand 999 liras.


While the number of days you need to work in order to purchase the Pro model of iPhones introduced in Turkey in the last five years was 92.5 days in 2021, this figure increased to 146.5 days in 2022. Therefore, compared to the previous year, the number of days worked increased by 54 days. In other countries, the situation is as follows: you have to work 90.9 days in the Philippines, 47.1 days in Mexico and 30.3 days in Greece. On the other hand, you can have a state-of-the-art iPhone by working 6.1 days in Australia, 5.7 days in the USA and 4.6 days in Switzerland.
So what does this tell us economically?

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), an exchange rate that equates the purchasing power of different currencies, shows the ratio of the national currency amounts required to purchase the same basket of goods and services in different countries. PPP is most simply calculated as the price ratio of a product with the same definition in two countries. Returning to the iPhone index example above, the iPhone index is an index prepared according to purchasing power parity. Thanks to these indices, it is possible to make comparisons between countries. Accordingly, it seems quite difficult to have an iPhone model phone in Turkey.