Why the iPhone 6 Costs $47,678 in Venezuela

Central planning madness in action. Bloomberg explains:

“It’s the same feeling of helplessness as when you have to go to three or four supermarkets looking for toilet paper or oil or flour,” Fernandez said. After a few weeks’ wait, she bought a Samsung Galaxy Fame -- a less-sophisticated phone with fewer features. “At least if this one gets stolen, it won’t hurt as much.”

Forget about a top-end smartphone. Venezuela’s lack of inventory and a shortage of dollars is making it harder this year to buy any mobile phone. Just 4.9 million will be sold in 2015, according to a Pyramid Research estimate. That’s a 46 percent drop from the almost 9 million devices sold in 2012. Venezuela’s shrinking number of users is an anomaly in Latin America, which had growth of more than 4 percent last year, according to eMarketer.

The country is having trouble finding enough dollars to pay for imports of basic goods, let alone mobile devices. That’s because oil accounts for 95 percent of Venezuelan exports, and local crude prices fell 50 percent in the second half of last year. Rather than import phones directly from manufacturers, mobile-service providers and vendors are obligated to go through government middleman Telecom Venezuela and the dollar shortage has hindered it from fulfilling orders.