Told you so. With a little over a month left before Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, some disturbing news has come out regarding the price of the coming smartphone. We’ll just say this… If you thought the iPhone 17 Pro and its Max brethren were expensive last year, you’ve got another thing coming. Another 300 things, in fact.
Yeah, the iPhone 17 Pro is doing just fine
Yup, the iPhone 18 Pro — Apple’s ditching the base model ’til next year — will reportedly be $300 more expensive than last year. Directly converted, that’s a nearly R5,000 increase compared to the previous Pro. That’s coming from analyst Jeff Pu in a post on X, who initially shared in February that he expected to see a smaller $200 hike.
He now claims that both the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will likely see a “$250–300 price hike… creating demand uncertainty despite resilient iPhone 17 builds. iPhone 18 Pro/[Pro Max] suggests limited spec upgrade for consumers,” he wrote, citing the increasing cost of DRAM and NAND as well as 2nm silicon in the A20 Pro.
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What that’ll look like on South Africa’s shores after taxes and import fees, we’d rather not think about. Last year’s iPhone 17 Pro sporting 256GB storage landed locally for R28,600 and built from there. Tack on another R5,000, and you’re looking at a R33,600 starting price for the iPhone 18 Pro. “Rough” doesn’t really cover it.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman takes a slightly more optimistic view. He also believes that Apple will hike prices, but that the fallout will be closer to the $200 (∼R3,300) mark. It won’t be long before we find out, anyway. Apple typically likes to show off its new batch of iPhones in September, along with a new watch and perhaps a foldable.
