Apple iPhone prices have quadrupled since 2008. Here’s what’s driving up costs.
Apple raised prices on new and older iPhones by $100 as AI-related inflation pushed up supply costs.
NEW YORK —
For a good while from 2008 to 2015, people could buy iPhones for a starting price of $199 with 16GB of storage. Nowadays, the least expensive, brand-new iPhone 17e sells for a starting price of $699 at your local Apple store.
And this week, Apple unveiled its priciest iPhone model to date: the iPhone Duo, which starts at $1,999 and can go up to $3,199 depending on the built-in storage capacity.
Since Apple introduced second-generation iPhones in 2008, the price of base-model iPhones has quadrupled from $199 to $799 with the new iPhone 17.
The price of iPhone base models may still go up after Apple announced on Wednesday that it will be raising prices on new and older iPhones by $100 as AI-related inflation pushed up supply costs.
The Get the Facts Data Team listed all iPhone models released by Apple since Steve Jobs first launched it in 2007. There have been 55 iterations released since then based on Apple’s website.
Next, we dug through Apple’s archived press releases to find the starting price of each iPhone model released.
How have iPhone prices changed?
We found that the biggest jump occurred in 2016, when Apple introduced the iPhone 7 starting at $649, doubling the storage to 32GB. And now, with the introduction of premium tiers like iPhone Pro and Pro Max, the overall price ceiling for iPhones has been pushed even higher.
Apple first introduced the premium Pro and Pro Max in 2019 with high-end starting prices of $999 and $1,099, respectively. This went up another $100 to $1,199 in 2023 with the release of the iPhone 15 Pro Max for the 256GB base model.
iPhone prices also go up as the built-in storage capacity increases. The latest iPhone 18 Pro Max has a starting price of $1,299 with 256GB of built-in storage. This can go up to $2,399 for 2TB of storage.
Aside from premium tiers and additional storage, carriers stopped subsidizing the cost of new iPhones.
Apple launched the iPhone 3G in 2008 with a price tag of $199 under a deal in which carriers would absorb a large portion of the cost for customers.
When carriers stopped offering subsidies, customers had to pay the full $650 price of an iPhone instead of the $199 upfront price that came with a two-year contract with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile.
So, why are iPhones getting more expensive?
The answer might lie in what’s inside — the memory chip. Memory chips are key components in AI data centers, and high demand for memory chips has created a global shortage. This global shortage has pushed the prices of Apple products, as well as other gadgets, higher.
In June, Apple raised prices for Macs and iPads because of a shortage of memory chips. Former Apple CEO Tim Cook called it a “100-year flood” in memory pricing and, in his final earnings call, warned that these supply constraints will likely not go away any time soon.
