If you have an eye for smartphones, walking on the streets of Tehran or other Iranian cities, you will simply not miss Iranians pretty well-versed in the workings of smart gadgets and handsets.
Without exception, barely a few days after any major international tech firm unveils a new mobile phone, you can find a sample in Tehran’s market.
Taking the subway, especially in the classy northern districts in the capital, or hitting cafés frequented by millennials and hipsters, you see someone brandishing the latest iPhone Xs Max.
Over the past years in most countries having a high-end handset has become a vogue for many for looking up-to-date, fashionable and smart. Iran is no exception.
From middle-aged businessmen to teenagers, everyone tries to get the latest gadget Apple or Samsung sell. After all being garbed smart and sharp without a high-end handset belongs to the past!
Furthermore, a strange vogue has emerged that equals having an iPhone with being wealthy and successful. As a side effect, it is not uncommon to see folks that have the latest iDevice but are clueless about what they have paid for or what the smartphone can do.
However, there has been a cultural backlash. There are people in Iran who consider iPhone lovers snobs and paying a lot for high-end mobile phones an unwanted extravagance.
Hard Times
But those were the good old days. Now things are much different as money is not easy to come by. In those times (a year ago) 1 USD fetched 37,000 rials.
In the past several months and after the US imposed new sanctions, Iran’s economy has taken a hit. The national currency, the rial, has tanked and lost 70% of its value.
Since there is no light at the end of the tunnel (so far) and some say the worst is yet to come, most Iranians are spending less and rewriting family budgets. One obvious victim is the cellphone, in particular the high-end models
By the same measure and given the mounting US rabid animosity under President Donald Trump and his minions, Iran’s economy is facing extremely difficult times. The problem is nowhere more conspicuous than in the purchasing power of most people.
With sanctions taking a toll on Iran’s international banking ties, imports, including smartphones, have become ever more difficult, if not impossible.
Add to this the fact that since there is no light at the end of the tunnel so far and some say the worst is still to come, most Iranians are spending less and rewriting family budgets. One obvious victim is the cellphone, in particular the high-end ones.
Prohibitive Prices
With forex rates hitting unprecedented highs ($1 = 130,000 rials on Sunday) and imports declining rapidly, smartphone prices have touched levels few could imagine in the not too distant past.
Apple and Samsung’s latest models are still available, albeit at prohibitive prices. For instance an iPhone XS Max costs 228 million rials ($1,754). The same handset goes for $1,449 in most other countries.
The latest Samsung Galaxy phone the S10 Plus is also available at a 210 million rials ($1,615) price tag. The same device sells $999 in the global market.
One may argue that these are high-end handsets not affordable for many around the world. But prices of budget cellphones have also become unaffordable to many in our country of 80 million people.
A Samsung Galaxy A7 costs 39 million rials ($300) in Tehran. Smartphones marked “A” by the South Korean tech giant are its mid-range products.
All said, you can still find people, especially the youth, saving money to buy a brand new smartphone. True, times are hard, but smart gadgets have become an inseparable part of many people’s lives on the universal scale.
