Where buying an iPhone 6 for 60 grand sounds like an insane idea to many people in India, the same iPhone 6 costs a crazy Rs 47 lakh in Venezuela! (which is 4,78,000 Venezuela Bolivar; where 1 Venezuela Bolivar is equal to 10 Indian Rupees) Can you imagine that?
However, Venezuela isn’t being crazy for no reason! The people of this country live with the world’s highest inflation, chronic food shortages and rampant crime. As reported by Bloomberg Business, a month earlier, a woman in Caracas, Venezuela was robbed of her Samsung Galaxy S4 at gunpoint.
But there is a big reason behind this! Forget high-end and fancy smartphones, Venezuela’s lack of inventory and shortage of dollars has made it quite difficult to buy any kind of smartphone. Venezuela is facing major problems to find enough dollars to even pay for the imports of basic goods, let alone mobile devices. Due to the lack of foreign investment in the country, instead of importing phones directly from the manufacturers, the mobile service providers and vendors in the country are obligated to go through government middleman Telecom Venezuela, and the dollar shortage hinders them from fulfilling the orders. Basically it is sort of a vicious circle for Venezuela!
Now because there is so much shortage of investment and struggle for basic goods, buying luxury items in the country is like reaching for the sky! The prices of goods are terribly high in Venezuela due to surging inflation. To add to that, due to the device and funds shortage the availability of smartphones is also limited. As stated in Bloomberg Business’ report, the latest iPhone is next to impossible to find even in the country’s capital, as the stores there mostly offer China-made phones.
Now, this whole thing comes full circle and it all makes it clear why that woman was robbed off her smartphone. Their limited availability is bound to make the phones lucrative to criminals. As told to Bloomberg Business by a police sub-director of Caracas Chacao borough, the most common crime in the city of Caracas is mobile-phone theft.
