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by wkat4242 777 days ago
I wonder why they didn't just start selling here in Europe earlier if sales are lagging. Even if some enthusiasts will have gray-imported theirs.

Not that I'd buy one, the price is ridiculous. Including taxes it would cost me nearly half a year's rent. But I'm sure some people would.

5 comments

Setting up the infrastructure for the prescription lenses (which are regulated differently in every country) and in-store demos is probably a massive job
there are already small companies selling after-market prescription lenses for VR in EU https://www.vr-wave.store/
Checking their Terms of Service it starts with "Our place of business is Hong Kong, i.e., Hong Kong jurisdiction applies", which means they can just completely ignore any EU law about optometry, a luxury Apple doesn't have
here's a German company instead

https://vroptician.com/

Europe is harder due to multiple languages. They didn’t even bother with the lower hanging fruit: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK etc.

I wonder if the strong USD was a contributing factor in delaying this.

Digital Markets Act. Apple are having to hold their nose and allow alternative apps stores in the EU. AVP is their new pasture for walled-garden entertainment, so it would be risky to introduce that, especially at a time when their own app store has so little content for it.
I probably would, as I would have bought a Quest or one of the others if that didn't tie me to one little company driven universe with their own rules.
Europeans cannot afford it
LVMH seems to do OK in Europe, there is certainly a thriving luxury market. Vision Pro is just not compelling enough to live up to the price tag.
73% of LVMH revenue is from outside of Europe:

https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/

10% of population but 27% of revenue, seems pretty fair to me - if you think that buying an outsized amount of luxury tat is a good thing!