Is Canon selling overpriced digital cameras in India?

Canon India is selling Powershot A95 at an MRP of Rs. 25,995/-.

Amazon’s listing of A95 mentions a list price of $349.95 (or Rs. 15,121 at today’s exchange rates). Amazon actually sells it for $269.94 (or Rs. 11,664 today).

The question is why does Canon India sell its regular products at a 70% higher price in India? How much duty do these products attract anyway? It is not that this camera is a new model. This camera is now about one year old in the market.

When I asked a prominent Canon’s retailer in India the reason, he mentioned a bullshit story about how Canon’s products are superior, blah, blah.

The fact is that in US, the A95 is battling it out with other 5MP cameras just as any other 5MP camera. In India however, Canon seems to be positioning it as a “premium” camera.

A case in point, its 5MP competitor Nikon Coolpix 5200 retailing at $399.99 (or Rs. 17,283 today) and actually sold for $249.95 at Amazon is a point-and-shoot camera unlike the A95 which features quite a few manual controls. You can actually get this Nikon camera for Rs. 18k in Nehru Place (14k without bill 😉 ).

Canon’s pricing policies in India are sad - they will only result in people (like me 😉 ) coaxing their overseas friends to “gift” them one from US instead, and save more than Rs. 10k in the process!