MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

iPod sale: try Hong Kong, US but avoid South America

Commonwealth Bank, has used the latest version of Apple's music player to compare global currencies

Want to buy an iPod? Try Hong Kong and if in Europe, Switzerland, and if in the Americas, United States or Canada but please avoid Brazil. That is the suggestion of Commonwealth Bank, one of Australia's largest, which checked the cost of a digital music 4GB iPodNano in 55 different countries.

Using a similar index to The Economist's Big Mac, the Australian bank compares prices in US dollars for a new iPod revealing that five of the ten most expensive countries are in Latinamerica, particularly Brazil, 369 US dollars. Brazil is followed by Bulgaria (318 US dollars) then comes Argentina, 317, with Peru and Chile, 294, and Uruguay, 260, also figuring among the dearest. At the other extreme is Hong Kong where the Nano iPod is cheapest, 148 dollars, followed by United States, 149; Japan, 154; Taiwan, 165 and Singapore, 167. Australia enjoying a strong currency figures among the cheapest ten countries where to purchase the Nano, 175 US dollars; in China where they are built they sell for 179 dollars and in South Korea, 180. In the European Union, Greece has the cheapest cost, 196, and from there on to France's 225; Germany, 211 and half way the UK with 202. The price list not only reveals the purchasing power parity in different countries and basically if a currency is undervalued compared to others, but also confirms the weakness of the US dollar globally. Other factors are tariffs and local taxes, which help to explain why Brazilian and Argentines travel overseas for their technological shopping, concludes the report.