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The Moto G is manufactured in Brazil and is priced as if it was imported. In fact, perhaps as a slap in the face of the consumer, it's priced exactly as if it w
by dlisboa 13y ago
The Moto G is manufactured in Brazil and is priced as if it was imported. In fact, perhaps as a slap in the face of the consumer, it's priced exactly as if it was imported. There's a 60% importation tax, which means that importing a 179 dollar phone goes for exactly 650 reais, which is what they're pricing it.
So, no, it's not because of taxes. Unless the cost of production in Brazil is precisely 60% the price of production in the US, this is just plain markup on a market used to it, so they abuse it while still being below the other high-markup devices.
- fpgeek 13y agoThere are a lot of non-abusive reasons why Motorola might start by pricing the Moto G as if it were imported, even if most of them will be manufactured locally. For instance, depending on how far along local production is, Motorola may well have imported launch stock. Or Motorola may be worried they'll end up stuck between importing stock or leaving sales on the table if they underestimated Brazilian demand. Or maybe there are issues with some imported parts or ... Once they reach a steady-state where they can forecast demand and Brazil is comfortably a net exporter of Moto Gs, it should be different, but, in the short run, Motorola has sensible reasons to be cautious.