Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The world’s most expensive smartphone: Brazil’s black market for gadgets is booming

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Mercado Livre is Brazil's version of eBay, and it's full of electronics. Visit the site at any moment, and you'll find hundreds of vendors selling their unlocked iPhones, with many priced at nearly $700 USD. That’s about $100 more than what the same model costs at a US Apple Store, but in Brazil, it's a bargain.


Steep taxes and import tariffs have sent prices skyward in Brazil, especially in the electronics sector. An unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4 retails for around $630 on Amazon's US store. At Casa e Video, an electronics store in Rio de Janeiro, the same phone costs more than $1,100.


As a result, some consumers have resorted to more subversive channels. Last year, two American flight attendants were arrested at Sao Paulo's airport on...


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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/30/4571602/brazil-inflation-fuel-black-market-for-smuggled-smartphones-tablets

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