According to TechCrunch, customers will see the prices of existing product models on Apple's online store increase, including the starting price of iPhone 16 at 799 USD, iPhone 17e at 699 USD, iPhone 17 at 899 USD and iPhone Air at 1,099 USD.
Price increases are even higher in some international markets. For example, in India, prices are said to have increased by about 20.5%. The company has also stopped producing iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
This strategy is quite unusual for Apple. Traditionally, the launch of the new generation iPhone means that older models will become cheaper.
However, the price increase is not entirely unexpected. There have been many speculations that Apple may increase prices when launching the next generation iPhone. One of the biggest pressures is the global shortage of memory and storage chips. Demand for these components has skyrocketed as artificial intelligence companies and cloud service providers build larger and larger data centers.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in June 2026, former Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that rising component costs may ultimately force the company to reconsider its pricing strategy. He said that Apple is no longer fully capable of bearing the rising costs of memory chips and storage chips.
About a week after those comments, the company increased the prices of all of its Mac and iPad products.
Another reason Apple may consider increasing iPhone prices is to maintain its competitiveness with increasing prices from competitors such as Samsung and Google.
In addition, Apple may feel that their new upgrade program, which allows customers to pay in installments for iPhone purchases according to manageable monthly payments, may reduce the impact of price increases, making consumers less aware.
