iPad makes it to Brazil, at eye-watering prices
Apple's iPad went on sale in Brazil from Friday, with customers lining up at stores to get their hands on the tablet computer whose entry into Latin America's biggest market faced pricing and other challenges.
Brazilians were being asked to fork over between 970 dollars for the cheapest version (a 16GB Wi-Fi model) up to 1,530 dollars for the top-of-the-line 34GB WiFi-plus-3G model.
Those prices were nearly twice the amount US customers were paying, due to Brazil's 100-percent tariffs on imported electronics imposed to protect the domestic industry.
The trendy computing device also ran into a problem with its name.
The word "iPad" had already been registered in Brazil to denote a South Korean-made defibrillator that has been used to restart patients' hearts in Brazilian hospitals for the past three years.
A brewing legal tussle between that medical unit's maker, CU Medical Systems Inc., appeared to have been settled to allow Apple's tablet to finally hit Brazilian shelves.
(c) 2010 AFP
