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For years Japanese shoppers eagerly shelled out for the latest gadgets, but now a tumbling yen has put new iPhones out of reach for some and sparked a growing secondhand trade in a major market for Apple Inc .
The Japanese currency’s fall to a 32-year low against the dollar has squeezed consumers and accelerated a broader spending shift in the world’s no.3 economy. Industry watchers say Japan’s shoppers have become more open to buying secondhand, thanks in part to the rise of online auction sites.
In July, Apple hiked the price of the entry-level iPhone 13 by nearly a fifth. The basic iPhone 14 later debuted at 20 percent more than the iPhone 13 did, even as the U.S. price stayed flat at $799. While the dollar has surged against global currencies this year, the yen has been particularly hit, dropping 22 percent.
Salaryman Kaoru Nagase wanted a new phone but couldn’t justify the price of a iPhone 14, which starts at 119,800 yen ($814). Instead, he bought a used iPhone SE 2 in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district for less than a third of that.
“At more than 100,000 yen the iPhone 14 is too expensive and I just can’t afford it. It would be fine if the battery lasted for 10 years,” he said. The iPhone SE 2, released in 2020 but without the dual rear camera of the iPhone 14, was a “good balance” of cost and features, he said.
Apple declined to comment for this story. But in an annual regulatory filing last month, it said Japan sales fell 9 percent in the year ended September 24 due to the yen’s weakness.
