In the many years that’ve passed since the introduction of the $999 iPhone X, there have almost always been rumors of an iPhone price hike – and we’re still yet to see a major one come to fruition. Granted, there have been other minor price hikes over time. In the midst of tariffs, it seems more likely than ever that there’ll be a price hike of some sorts this year – and we’ll be discussing those rumors here today.

With the iPhone 15 Pro lineup, Apple implemented a discrete price hike – specifically on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It eliminated the 128GB storage option at $1099, requiring all customers to buy the 256GB iPhone at $1199. This was technically a price hike in the sense that you’d be paying more if you were okay with 128GB of storage. Otherwise, if you bought ahead higher storage tier already, nothing would be changing.

It’s plausible we could see that again with the iPhone 17 lineup, at least with the iPhone 17 Pro. $1099 for 256GB seems fairly likely in this climate, though that’s merely my own speculation.

Price hike rumor

One analyst suggests that Apple would increase the prices of the Slim, Pro, and Pro Max iPhones by $50 this year, leaving out the standard iPhone. That’d leave a $799 iPhone 17, $949 iPhone 17 Air, $1049 iPhone 17 Pro, and $1249 iPhone 17 Pro Max. Another leaker known as Instant Digital has also corroborated this.

With a $50 price increase, it’s rather unlikely that Apple would provide storage bumps, making the value proposition slightly worse overall. That said, with the new iPhone 17 Pro design launching this year (and hopefully some widely-appealing colors), maybe Apple doesn’t need to worry about throwing in additional storage.

I do think $949 for the iPhone 17 Air seems rather steep, given the fact that it’s currently an unproven market segment. Apple’s suppliers don’t expect it to make up a significant portion of sales volume as of now. If this one analyst is correct and the base iPhone 17 remains at $799, that could make the brand new 17 Air a much tougher sell, even with its substantially thinner and more appealing design.

Wrap up

Overall, if there’s one year for there to be an iPhone price increase, it’s probably this year. While Apple has been exempted from some of the much larger tariffs on China, they still are subject to some smaller ones. On average, tariffs are currently costing Apple nearly a billion dollars a quarter, with that impact expected to increase next quarter.

Source: 9to5mac