Iphone 14 to cost Nigeria’s minimum wage earner 23 months’ salary

THE rising cost of living in Nigeria has seen it ranked the least affordable country in the world to purchase an iphone 14, according to Comparedial. com.

The cost of the phone is almost 23 times Nigeria’s minimum wage of N30,000.

Comparedial, an Ofcomapproved comparison website for mobile phone and Sim-only deals, surveyed 76 countries using the yearly salary based on the median annual salary. The survey underscores the impact of the economic crisis Nigeria is currently facing and the effect on the income of the citizens.

According to the data, a Nigerian citizen needs to spend 69.12 percent of their yearly salary to purchase the base model iphone 14 which comes with a 125GB storage size. The price of the Apple smartphone in Nigeria is $1,571.57 (N684,418.735 at the rate of N435) after taxes. At that price, Nigeria is the third most expensive country in the world for an iphone 14.

The website also noted that a Nigerian citizen will need to work approximately 1,437.67 hours or 179.71 days to have enough money to purchase the base model iphone 14, 125GB.

Apple introduced the iphone 14 and iphone 14 Plus on September 8. Pre-orders began Friday, September 9, with availability for iphone 14 beginning Friday, September 16, and availability for iphone 14 Plus starting Friday, October 7.

“Our customers rely on their iphone every day, and iphone 14 and iphone 14 Plus introduce ground-breaking new technologies and important safety capabilities. With the new, larger 6.7-inch display on iphone 14 Plus, users can enjoy more content on screen when browsing the web and even more text,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Both phones have a powerful new main camera with a huge leap in low-light performance, advanced connectivity capabilities with 5G and ESIM, and the incredible performance of A15 Bionic, which helps enable even better battery life. All of this, tightly integrated with IOS 16, makes iphone more essential than ever.”

While Apple dominates the smartphone market in countries like the US with 56.69 percent and Japan with 70 percent, it has struggled in Africa generally. Morocco has the highest iphone users at 28 percent market share whereas only 1 percent of people in Madagascar use iphones.

In Nigeria, Apple’s market share is 10.8 percent according to data from Statcounter. The dominant phone brands in Nigeria are Tecno 24.53 percent, Infinix 21.41 percent, and Samsung 11.8 percent.

According to many iphone users in Nigeria, the challenge is not a lack of demand for the smartphone. Many Nigerians would want to use the brand, however, pricing remains a barrier.

Apple smartphones are categorised among the premium brands of mobile devices in the world. The cheapest iphone in the market iphone SE will still cost around $429 for the 64 GB model for a brand new one. At the current exchange rate of N435/$ that is around N186,615. The iphone 6 and 7s which are older models may be lower.

Nonetheless, the cheapest iphone is still higher than the average minimum wage in Nigeria at N30,000. With the inflation rate at over 20 percent, the pressure on many Nigerians has significantly increased in recent times. Moreover, Nigerians who used to earn N100,00, for instance, would need to work a lot more to maintain the lifestyle they once had in that salary range.

“Assuming inflation was at 20 percent inflation annually, if you earn 500,000, that’s now N416,666. You need to now earn N600,000 just to maintain your previous N500,000 income,” said Kalu Aja, a personal finance income.

The Comparedial analysis gives a modest estimate of the median yearly salary in Nigeria at $2,273.72 which when multiplied N435 exchange rate amounts to N989,068.2 or N82,422 on a monthly basis. This is the salary of many graduates in cities such as Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.

The fall in purchasing power is behind the drive for device financing that many smartphone brands have adopted. Samsung, Tecno, HMD Nokia, and many brands now offer customers different financing packages to enable them to purchase their smartphones and pay gradually.