iPhone price increase: Will it come this summer?
Macs and accessories become significantly more expensive at Apple. But Apple has so far excluded the iPhone. Will that remain the case?
Blurry iPhone: Soon more expensive?
(Image: Sebastian Trepesch / heise medien)
This change came with an announcement: After Apple CEO Tim Cook personally announced that Apple was forced to increase prices due to the current memory and SSD crisis, the implementation followed on Thursday. The company took a surprisingly broad approach: Every single Mac model is affected by an average increase of 100 to 200 euros, and it can be significantly more for better configurations. In addition, there are price increases for iPads, as well as – and this is already causing a lot of criticism – the completely outdated HomePod and Apple TV devices. However, Apple has completely excluded iPhones and Apple Watch models. The question now is whether the company will really wait until the new models in September with its in-house inflation round.
The iPhone is sensitive
In a statement distributed to international media, Apple, as expected, made no statement on this. It only said that it had reached a point where the company had to “begin” to increase prices on “a number of products.” iPad and Mac were mentioned as examples, but the wording (“including today's increase for iPad and Mac”) suggests that this was not the end of the line.
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However, the iPhone is a sensitive topic for Apple; it is and remains the company's most important product. The direct price increase for many legacy products has already surprised many customers. Perhaps the company now wants to spare them this, at least for the iPhone and the Apple Watch, which dominate the smartwatch market, for now. The industry had long assumed that the new iPhone series in September would each cost around $200 more, possibly around 250 euros when converted to euros. In addition, with the iPhone foldable, which is known in the scene under the designation iPhone Ultra, a new form factor is to come, with which Apple can work with new prices – allegedly well over 2000 dollars for the entry-level device. Furthermore, iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max are still in the pipeline this year.
The old and the new prices
If Apple does increase iPhone and Apple Watch prices after all, the company theoretically still has a few months. It is possible that the price increase will now also lead customers to increasingly buy existing iPhones and not wait until September. Something similar happened in the US after the announcement of iPhone tariffs by the Trump administration, which then did not materialize after all.
One thing is clear: Apple is likely to proceed strategically. In fact, the company had refrained from price increases for a long time, instead removing entry-level configurations from the program. The affordable MacBook Neo also surprised observers.
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