The German platform Grover dedicated to renting technology has compiled a global index on the prices of technology products. To show how the pandemic and the lack of components have made it difficult to purchase smartphones and PCs in different countries
You would be willing to spend 44,90 euro a month to have an iPhone (12 Pro with 128 Gb of memory) of your own, until you decide to change and rent another one? For Apple fans, to find the right deal, would mean paying just over 500 euros in 12 months and then moving to the new smartphone model from Cupertino. For fans of sustainability, it means circular economy: I use the iPhone as long as I need it and then I put it back on the market – refurbished – for someone else to use. If, on the other hand, you simply live in Argentina, means being able to have an object at a decent price that this year – price measured between September and last October – is not at all affordable: 2,248 euros.
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Why this difference in cost, for example with Italy where the same model costs 829 euros instead? As he tells The electronics price index 2021, a year or more of a pandemic had an impact more or less heavily – depending on the products and where you live – on the supply chain, logistics and movement of goods. To which is added, always exacerbated by the pandemic situation, the lack of some components, first of all the ubiquitous semi-conductors. With many consequences of the case, especially in the automotive sector, among which in view of Christmas stands out the constant unavailability of game consoles: still following the research prepared on 50 countries by the Grover site, the column of Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X (the new models respectively of Sony and Microsoft) is a sequence of “sold out”.
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Grover is a German company that has thrown itself into circular tech, the idea of renting and not buying products that by definition – if well cared for – they do not damage performance even if used. The concept of “refurbished” has long since also entered the business lines of individual companies, platforms such as Grover take it to the extreme, both for the end user and for companies. The idea therefore, in a particular year, of propose the explosion of prices of the main technological products it is therefore an interesting marketing strategy. This follows the announcement of the launch of a debit card developed with Visa – and equipped with 3% cashback – and aimed at the one million users of the platform, not yet present in Italy. Different forms of approach to a sector as challenging as the technological one that go well with the UN objectives, and possible new logics of a global market severely tested by the pandemic. Even if on closer inspection the Playstation 5 is still “out of stockAlso about Grover.
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Returning to the Index of prices, in general it is possible to notice an increase in the prices of electronic products compared to the widespread average although not alarming: in Italy we are at 1.46%. You can easily follow the trend by hinging on the logic with which the 50 countries surveyed were chosen: 1) Countries where there are electronic production sites or which in any case are the headquarters of important brands (and here usually the deviations from the average are positive, therefore green); 2) Countries where the diffusion of electronic products is consolidated on the population: here the variations, usually negative, then also depend on other factors, including customs taxes or currency fluctuations. And probably from the law of supply and demand. Because, remaining in Italy, it catches the eye a 20% ben increase compared to the world average of the cost of Windows PCs in the two-year period 2019-2021. That is to say that tool that was greatly lacking in the homes of the country and that has become fundamental in the lockdown regime with consequent smart working and distance learning. In a different world, redesigned from the concept of sustainability, digitization and the pandemic, will the idea of renting home and office technology be successful? In terms of software and content, the idea of a subscription – to Spotify or to Office – is gradually passing away. Now (maybe) it’s up to the hardware.
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November 14, 2021 (change November 14, 2021 | 06:24)
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