Mike, thank you for explaining that "10% margin" thing -yes, was meant as an example obviously.
My profession was sales/marketing (not consumer electronics, though) and so I think I know a little about how it works. But that doesn't necessary mean that I'm right in my assumptions. I say assumptions, because we have no evidence -is just a discussion.
Every country has import costs, taxes, vat, etc. and although they might differ in naming, percent wise, the end result is usually very similar -economics dictates that. That is, if import price of some article is 100€, end price will be (let's say) 80% higher and that's true for US, Europe and India. Yes, it might be only 70% higher in some countries or it can be even 110% higher in others, but this is less relevant in this case. I mean, between 170€ and 210€ is only 24% difference -even in this case, import costs difference is 40%! What does make an important difference, is import price -because end price is (percent wise) based on import price.
I agree with Mike, that manufacturer can be ready to sell at some countries with very minimal profit: being present in market can be very important for future. However, I'm not sure that's the case for India. Why I think so? Because India has more than four times the population than US (for example) and I'm quite sure that much more PSR keyboards are sold in India than in US -probably more than in US+Europe together. And because of that, I just can't imagine that Yamaha would work on such huge market with minimal profit and cover profit difference with sales in US and Europe.
In short, we pay here more, because we can afford. Average monthly income in India is about 450€ and so the person there need to pay two monthly incomes for keyboard -now compare that with monthly income in US or Europe. And Yamaha knows that.
Ok, time for some practicing on my
overpriced keyboard
Bogdan
