Apple has pretty inconsistent pricing in India. Some of their products have pretty good pricing and in line with other countries (after making allowance for duties of course) Others attract a huge difference in premium. It seems they set high prices on products that they think are going to sell well in the country. The Accessories especially seem to be a major rip off as many people see them as essential purchases.
A few years back My friend/colleague who was sharing accommodation with me at the time was offered a spot bonus of 30k by my company which he could claim in the form of a product from a list of choices being offered. Since he didn't have a computer of his own, he choose to go for a Mac Mini. He went for a better model than what was being offered agreed to pay the price difference which came to 6k. The Mac Mini was sourced from a local Apple dealer. Now the thing was that Mac Mini does not include either the Keyboard or mouse, so he has to buy them separately. Since he was already fed up with OS X Tiger antics at office, he had planned to install Windows XP right from the start. So I told him to simply get a Microsoft or Logitech combo for 1000 bucks and be done. But he wanted to see if he can get a Apple keyboard and mouse just to match the Mini despite having used Apple keyboard and mouse at office and knowing how crappy they are. The keyboard was the older model with the white keys in the transparent tray and was a major dust/dirt/grime magnet. The mouse was the mighty mouse which was ergonomically unusable for any one with decently large hands.
The Apple guy quoted him a freaking 8.5k for this combo. That's like 1/4th the cost of the Mac Mini. I knew that Apple accessories are costly, but this was insane. :crazy: I can understand premium prices for premium products, but this was clearly not such a case. My backlit gaming keyboard + Gaming Laser Mouse combo cost me less than that and during the 3.5 years I have been using them at home, I was already on a second Apple keyboard at office and as for mighty mouse, In a month after starting using it, my fingers started aching badly and I had to exchange it for a HP USB Mouse. I am not sure whether these accessories attracted such a premium in US at the time, but this was clearly a case of premium for the brand name. In the end my friend quietly picked up a MS Wireless Combo for 1.4k.