IT House reported on September 10 that according to Reuters, Apple raised the price of older iPhones on sale in the Indian market, with a maximum increase of 41%, just hours after releasing the new iPhone. This is contrary to the company’s usual practice of cutting prices for older products, and is the largest price increase Apple has made in any market this year.
Apple has also adjusted prices for older models in the Chinese and US markets, with price increases in the US market ranging from 10% to 21%. This price adjustment follows Apple’s autumn new product launch, where new CEO John Ternus officially launched Apple’s first foldable screen phone, iPhone Duo.
Apple has previously announced plans to raise iPhone prices globally, citing rising memory and storage chip costs as the reason. The surge in data center demand driven by AI has caused consumer electronics companies to compete for the increasingly scarce supply of core components, further driving up costs. India is one of Apple’s fastest-growing markets. Currently, a large portion of Apple’s iPhones sold globally are assembled and produced in India.
But local assembly has not shielded Indian consumers from price hikes. Import tariffs on parts and components plus an 18% goods and services tax make the price of iPhones in the Indian market much higher than those in the US market. Among them, the price of the entry-level storage version of iPhone 17 in India increased by nearly 21% to 99,900 Indian rupees (IT House note: the current exchange rate is approximately 7,071 yuan); the iPhone Air saw the highest increase in the entire series, and the price of the 1TB version increased by 41% to 224,900 Indian rupees (the current exchange rate is approximately 15,918 yuan).
In comparison, the same version of the model has experienced even lower growth in the US market: the price of the basic iPhone 17 has increased by nearly 13% to US$899 (approximately 6,046 yuan at the current exchange rate), and the 1TB iPhone Air has increased by 21% to US$1,699 (approximately 11,427 yuan at the current exchange rate).
The price increase quickly sparked heated discussions on Indian social media. Some commentators believe that such pricing has completely reduced the iPhone to a luxury product in India. Many people also pointed out that the price of the folding screen iPhone in India is US$1,100 higher than that in the United States (approximately 7,398 yuan at the current exchange rate).
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