(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Apple may be looking to increase iPhone prices this year, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Citing "people familiar with the matter," the WSJ says the company is considering a price increase paired with new features and design changes on its next-gen models, likely the iPhone 17 series.
According to the paper's sources, Apple wants to avoid saying the price is increasing because of tariffs. Apple has long relied on Chinese manufacturers to build the iPhone. Although President Trump exempted smartphones from his extra 125% tariff on Chinese imports, the devices still faced another 20% duty. Today, however, the US and China paused tariffs on imported goods until early August, but we likely won't see a new iPhone until September.
In the meantime, Apple is shifting production of US devices to India. Most iPads, Macs, and Apple Watch devices sold in the US will come from Vietnam.
In April, a news report suggested Amazon was planning to directly tell customers when US tariffs had increased the price of a product. The White House called it a “hostile and political act," and Amazon said that the move was never under consideration for its main site, just Amazon Haul, its Temu clone. According to the WSJ, Apple wants to avoid a similar situation when increasing the price of its iPhone.
Instead, the sources say Apple is considering blaming the price increase on next-gen features. Rumors suggest a new ultrathin iPhone "Air" coming to the range.
If Apple does change its prices, it's not clear how much they will increase. Apple normally increases prices in $100 increments, so we may see the starting model in the iPhone 17 range hit $900 for the first time.
The iPhone 16 now starts at $799, and the 16 Plus costs $899. The iPhone 16 Pro then starts at $999, with the Pro Max at $1,199.
The last time we saw a price rise for the standard model was in 2020, when the iPhone 12 sold for $799, compared with the $699 Apple charged for an iPhone 11. There were rumors that the entire iPhone 15 lineup would come with a $100 to $200 price increase, but in the end, only the base iPhone 15 Pro Max saw an increase because Apple nixed the 128GB model. The smaller Pro model has been $999 ever since it was first introduced with the iPhone 11 Pro in 2019.
If Apple increases prices across all its handsets, we may be set to see the most expensive iPhone ever in the 17 Pro Max.
In February 2025, Apple introduced an iPhone 16e, which starts at $599. While cheaper than the iPhone 16, it's more expensive than the $429 iPhone SE it replaced. At the time, PCMag's Eric Zeman suggested that may foreshadow an increase from Apple across its entire range.