By Graham K. Rogers

I occasionally run price comparisons between prices of Apple products in the USA and Thailand, although always make sure that I add tax, as Thailand has a VAT rate of 7% while US prices are quoted with no taxes. I last made such a comparison for a Bangkok Post (Life) article in January this year.

A new product shown this week in the Thai Store is the MacBook. In the USA the price is shown as $1299 for the 1.1GHz version with 256 GB SSD; and $1599 for the 1.2 GHz with 512 GB SSD. When converted into baht these are 42,489 and 52,302 baht, at today's rates.

Adding VAT of 7% gives 45,463 and 55,963 baht. The prices in the Thai store are 43,900 and 54,900 respectively, so the pricing seems to favour buyers in Thailand slightly.

I also looked at the AppleTV, aware that this had been reduced in the USA to $69 (2257 baht). When the VAT is added, that is now 2415 baht. Sadly there has been no such adjustment here and the price is still shown as 3,300 baht.

Bear in mind though, that when Apple TV was first shown here in June 2007, the much larger device (then) was a whopping 15,301 baht. When I bought my current device in July 2013 it was 3,800 baht.

There is room for a reduction here.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.