Apple iPhone is more than a smartphone for many, in fact it's a status symbol, especially in India. A major reason behind this is its popularity due to unique features and high cost -- the latest version iPhone X is priced between eye-watering Rs 89,000 and Rs 1 lakh in India. Not many can afford it considering India's average income and purchasing power. Though India is one of the world's biggest smartphone markets, the iPhone users in the country, which is dominated by affordable Chinese mobile phones, are still a minority. And the small chunk of the population that owns iPhones also has to shell out big bucks to enjoy its advanced features.
The high price is okay, but how much do you have to work to own an iPhone in India? UBS, a Swiss bank, conducted a survey of 77 major cities across the world to find out how much people have to toil to be able to own this precious device. And, some findings are extremely shocking.
To calculate this, the company analysed two things -- the price of an iPhone in a given city and an average salary in that city across 15 professions. Then it combined the numbers to derive the number of days (or hours) you'd have to work -- considering an average of 8-hour working day -- in each city to purchase the latest version of the company, iPhone X.
For countries like Nigeria, whose largest city of Lagos was covered in the survey, it turned out that people there will have to work for 133.3 days to buy an iPhone X. The country was ranked lowest in terms of purchasing power among the 77 cities surveyed by UBS. In affluent cities like Zurich, one has to work for just 4.7 days to buy an iPhone X. If you are living in London, you need to work for 11.3 days straight to be able to afford the device. Even in advanced cities like New York, one has to work for 6.7 days to buy an iPhone X.
In India, the survey was conducted in the two biggest cities of country, Mumbai and Delhi. On the level of earnings, Mumbai was ranked on 76th spot, just above Cairo. Mumbai's purchase power was ranked 71, just six places above the poorest city. The survey found a Mumbaikar has to work for an eye-popping 917.8 hours -- 114.7 days -- to get an iPhone. Delhi was also ranked just above Mumbai and Cairo. The UBS survey found out, one has to work for 804.2 hours, which is equivalent to around 100 days of continuous work of eight hours per day, to buy an iPhone X. The political capital of India was ranked 73 on purchasing power.