Indian Shoppers Fly to Dubai for Cheaper iPhone 18 Pro as IOC Crude Buying Pushes Gulf Prices Near $100
Indian consumers and Indian state enterprises alike made their presence felt in Dubai this week: shoppers from Kerala and Mumbai flew to the UAE specifically to buy the iPhone 18 Pro at prices far below what they would pay at home, while Indian Oil Corp's aggressive spot purchases of Persian Gulf crude helped push Dubai benchmark futures to their highest level since May 2026.
🏢 Indian buyers fly to Dubai Mall to escape India's iPhone import taxes
The iPhone 18 Pro launched at the Apple Store in Dubai Mall on Thursday, and among the first in the queue were Indians who had made the journey to the UAE specifically to take advantage of lower prices. Gulf News reporter Zainab Husain spoke with several at the Dubai Mall launch. Mohammed Sayed, from Kerala, arrived with his brother and estimated he would save around ₹20,000 to ₹30,000 by purchasing in Dubai rather than India. The gap was even sharper for Aman Solanki, a Mumbai resident who said the iPhone 18 Pro Max costs ₹50,000 to ₹60,000 more in India than in the UAE — a difference he said was large enough to justify buying three handsets in Dubai, two of them for family members. Even after the cost of a return flight and visa, Solanki told Gulf News, the Dubai purchase still worked out cheaper. Apple Store employees at Dubai Mall confirmed that while most customers at the launch were UAE residents, Indian visitors were among those joining the queue. India's higher import duties and taxes on consumer electronics have long made the UAE an attractive destination for Indian Apple fans looking to upgrade, and the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max release appears to have intensified that pattern. For Desi shoppers living in or visiting Dubai, the city continues to function as a tax-advantaged technology hub that India's home market cannot match. [5]
🏢 Indian Oil Corp's Gulf crude buying spree drives Dubai futures near $100 a barrel
Indian Oil Corp and other major Asian refiners sharply stepped up spot purchases of Middle Eastern crude in early September, helping send Dubai benchmark futures to nearly $100 a barrel — the highest level since May 2026. Energies Media reported that IOC has been among the most aggressive buyers in recent weeks, competing directly with PetroChina and South Korean and Japanese refiners for the same Persian Gulf barrels. The buying surge has a clear trigger: escalating US-Iran tensions and tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz in late August have raised genuine fears about supply disruptions from the Gulf, prompting refiners to accelerate purchases and build buffer stocks. An estimated six to eight million barrels per day of Middle Eastern crude flow through the Strait of Hormuz, and even uncertainty about the precise impact of the attacks has been enough to keep buyers on edge. Physical premiums have followed futures higher: Abu Dhabi's Murban crude now commands more than $30 a barrel over the Dubai benchmark for delivery to East Asia, which traders say is at least $10 above the delivered cost of US crude shipped from the Gulf Coast. For the large Indian business and trading community based in Dubai, the surge in oil prices is a major development with direct implications for India's import bill and for the regional energy trade flows that underpin much of the UAE's commercial activity. [2]
Sources: [5] Gulf News · [2] Energies Media