Apple Ceases Online Sales In Russia

Apple has ceased all manner of online sales in Russia, where this has been attributed to the rather sharp decline in the ruble which has in turn, sent the country’s economy into a crisis. In fact, on Tuesday alone, the Russian currency dropped by as much as 20% against other currencies, and overall, the ruble has declined by 60% this year alone. Apple is finding it difficult to turn too much of a profit after converting the rubles received for their products, and hence, this would indirectly result in an inadvertent raise of product prices – which Apple did by increasing the iPhone 6 price by 25% last month in that part of the world.

The sharp decline of the ruble has required Apple to continue reviewing its pricing for their online store in Russia, and in order to prevent changing prices several times each day, Apple decided to just stop sales at the moment.

-Luca Maestri, CFO, Apple, shared, “It’s a fact of life if the U.S. dollar strengthens, that creates a headwind for us both in revenue and margins for our business outside of the United States. We have a comprehensive hedging program in place that mitigates the impact of foreign exchange. Over time, of course, these hedges roll off and get replaced by new hedges at new spot levels, and so the protection that you get from a hedging program is temporary.”