Apple halts online sales in Turkey as economic crisis worsens

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AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in General Discussion edited November 2021
Apple temporarily suspended online sales of its devices in Turkey as the country's economy reels amid fallout from a highly controversial monetary policy enabled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey


Apple has not announced an official halt to sales, but online shopping appears to be temporarily unavailable due to economic instability in the region.

While the online storefront is currently live and displays complete product listings, specifications and prices, customers are unable to add items to their cart. Instead, the website reports nearly all devices as unavailable.

Turkey's lira crashed 15% on Tuesday, a day after Erdogan said there would be no backing down from a contentious monetary policy that has seen the country's central bank slash interest rates amid soaring inflation. The lira traded at a record low of 13.44 to the dollar before recovering to 12.86 against the dollar later in the day, reports Reuters.

The lira has shed 45% of its value this year, dropping a precipitous 22% in the last week alone.

The selloff is in response to Erdogan's push to cut rates in what he views as a viable strategy to bolster exports, investment and jobs, the report says. Inflation rates are hovering at close to 20%, dramatically increasing the price of goods while at the same time devaluing Turks' earnings.

MacRumors reported on the development earlier today.

It is unclear when Apple will reverse course and restart online sales in the country, but it could be some time given the ongoing economic strife.

Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    JWSCjwsc Posts: 1,203member
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
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  • Reply 2 of 11
    robabarobaba Posts: 228member
    JWSC said:
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
    So you’d be training dependence on a nationally gamed system, for that of an internationally gamed system.  Not seeing much of a choice there boss.
    Ofermuthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 3 of 11
    JWSCjwsc Posts: 1,203member
    robaba said:
    JWSC said:
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
    So you’d be training dependence on a nationally gamed system, for that of an internationally gamed system.  Not seeing much of a choice there boss.
    I think we’ll take choice between a single state currency and a good number of cryptocurrencies over having no choice any day of the week.  Not sure why you would assume a cryptocurrency would be gamed.  It could be I suppose.  But few would willingly sign up to a gamed currency.  These would be virtual banks, where trust is everything to customers and financial markets.
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  • Reply 4 of 11
    Alex_Valex_v Posts: 282member
    Turkey’s citizens are used to this. There are money exchange kiosks on every street corner. Anyone is free to buy any currency within limits. When the Turkish Lira is stable everyone quotes in Lira for small items and big ticket items like property, cars, appliances, salaries etc. When it’s not, everyone reverts to using the US dollar or Euro for big ticket items. The average Turk will know the price of anything in those three currencies. Apple pegs the price of it’s products to the dollar. If a currency drops 15% in a day, they can't display prices in the local currency on their website.
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  • Reply 5 of 11
    neverindoubtneverindoubt Posts: 120member
    Alex_V said:
    Apple pegs the price of it’s products to the dollar. If a currency drops 15% in a day, they can't display prices in the local currency on their website.
    This is exactly it. Apple (and other online retailers) aren’t set up to adjust pricing minute by minute as a currency dives. 

    The alternative is people buying out their stock at an “old” price as currency arbitrage.

    I won’t be surprised if the currency continues to drop if Apple just changes its prices in Turkey to dollars or euro.
    Alex_Vwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 6 of 11
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,145member
    JWSC said:
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
    Yet another ridiculous argument in support of crypto as a currency replacement.

    Inflation in the US has averaged less than 4% over the past 40 years, and its value relative to the Euro, Chinese Yuan, and other major currencies is practically the same as it was 40 years ago. Yet your genius plan to fix this non-existent problem is to create a "safety net" using a speculative highly-volatile asset such as crypto, which can lose half of its value in a single day. 

    Get your head examined.

    muthuk_vanalingamroundaboutnowforegoneconclusionwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 7 of 11
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,145member
    neverindoubt said:
    Alex_V said:
    Apple pegs the price of it’s products to the dollar. If a currency drops 15% in a day, they can't display prices in the local currency on their website.
    Apple (and other online retailers) aren’t set up to adjust pricing minute by minute as a currency dives. 
    You literally made this up, and it is completely false.  In 2021, the technology does exist to update data on a website every minute.  
    watto_cobra
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  • Reply 8 of 11
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    JWSC said:
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
    Crypto currencies are hardly an example of a stable exchange rate.
    muthuk_vanalingamxyzzy-xxxroundaboutnowAlex_Vwatto_cobra
     5Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 9 of 11
    JWSCjwsc Posts: 1,203member
    crowley said:
    JWSC said:
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
    Crypto currencies are hardly an example of a stable exchange rate.
    It’s true, they aren’t yet.  Bitcoin is really a speculative investment and not a currency.  And other cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy.  But longer term I see an opportunity to hedge against state backed currencies with one that has the potential of being far more stable and inflation/deflation proof.

    Some may recall that banks in the U.S. used to issue their own currencies.  One need look no further than the Scottish banks that issue their own currencies to see how it works.  Technically, these notes are not even legal tender, but considered to be promissory notes. No reason an enterprising group of individuals can’t do the same with their own cryptocurrency and back it with, for example, gold or any other precious commodity you might think of.
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  • Reply 10 of 11
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    JWSC said:
    crowley said:
    JWSC said:
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
    Crypto currencies are hardly an example of a stable exchange rate.
    It’s true, they aren’t yet.  Bitcoin is really a speculative investment and not a currency.  And other cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy.  But longer term I see an opportunity to hedge against state backed currencies with one that has the potential of being far more stable and inflation/deflation proof.

    Some may recall that banks in the U.S. used to issue their own currencies.  One need look no further than the Scottish banks that issue their own currencies to see how it works.  Technically, these notes are not even legal tender, but considered to be promissory notes. No reason an enterprising group of individuals can’t do the same with their own cryptocurrency and back it with, for example, gold or any other precious commodity you might think of.
    No reason they can't do that except for the complete absence of any reason for why they would do that.

    Crypto currency is a crap fire, and it will remain one under the fire explodes and burns out.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 11 of 11
    JWSCjwsc Posts: 1,203member
    crowley said:
    JWSC said:
    crowley said:
    JWSC said:
    Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

    Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.
    Crypto currencies are hardly an example of a stable exchange rate.
    It’s true, they aren’t yet.  Bitcoin is really a speculative investment and not a currency.  And other cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy.  But longer term I see an opportunity to hedge against state backed currencies with one that has the potential of being far more stable and inflation/deflation proof.

    Some may recall that banks in the U.S. used to issue their own currencies.  One need look no further than the Scottish banks that issue their own currencies to see how it works.  Technically, these notes are not even legal tender, but considered to be promissory notes. No reason an enterprising group of individuals can’t do the same with their own cryptocurrency and back it with, for example, gold or any other precious commodity you might think of.
    No reason they can't do that except for the complete absence of any reason for why they would do that.

    Crypto currency is a crap fire, and it will remain one under the fire explodes and burns out.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.
    I’ll give you that reason.  The bank is the market maker in its own currency.  That gives it tremendous power to set exchange rates with other currencies, and like governments can use that leverage to make favorable exchanges using the currency of their own accounts to accumulate assets for the bank.  There’s a tremendous opportunity for cryptocurrency market makers to become very wealthy and at the same time provide transaction stability and assent safety to those who choose to use it.

    My grandfather was what they used to call a stock jobber on the London Stock Exchange.  He owned the entire market for several different commodities.  You wanted to buy or sell tin, you went through him.  And wow it was a very good business being the arbiter and market maker of a highly tradable commodity you had complete control of.  I’m saying you can do the same thing with a cryptocurrency if you can establish a trust worthy reputation by offering a stable and easily exchangeable currency.  So yea, cryptocurrencies are a big big opportunity that no one will be able to ignore for long.
    edited November 2021
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