Apple reopens Russian online store after boosting iPhone 6 price by 35%
Apple raised the price of its entry-level iPhone 6 by 35% when it reopened its Russian online story today. — Last week, the Cupertino, Calif. company shuttered its Russian e-market after the ruble took a dive …
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a three-day loop: Apple first pulled its Russian online store as the ruble slid, then raised App Store prices across Russia to track the exchange rate, and today reopened retail with the entry-level iPhone 6 repriced 35% higher. The move is less about margin than currency — Apple is converting a volatile local price into a de facto dollar-denominated one.
First-order effects
- Russian buyers of the entry-level iPhone 6 pay 35% more than they did before the store's suspension, while App Store customers are already absorbing the earlier price increases.
Second-order effects
- The ruble playbook becomes reusable: Apple repeats the same currency-offset logic years later when it hikes iPhone 15 prices across China, Japan, India and other markets and again when it raises Japanese iPhone prices up to 11% against a weakening yen.
Third-order effects
- Aggressive local repricing cuts both ways legally — Apple's later conviction for iPhone price-fixing in Russia shows regulators treat how it sets national pricing as a compliance issue, not just a commercial one — and the eventual full halt of Russian product sales in 2022 marks where currency management ends and market exit begins.
The trend: Apple is shifting from fixed local list prices to currency-indexed pricing that reprices hardware wherever exchange-rate swings erode dollar revenue.