When Apple releases the iPhone 17 series this September (read this for exactly when the announcement will take place), there will be an answer to a hotly debated question: how much will it cost? A new report has good news and bad news.
Apple iPhone 16 — is the price about to go up for the iPhone 17 series?
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A new investor note from Edison Lee, an analyst at Jefferies, has been instanced in a post on X. It details the potential price rise, which models it’s likely to affect, and gives two reasons for this.
“Jefferies expects a $50 price increase for iPhone 17 Slim/P/PM models to offset rising component costs and China tariffs. Other potential cost pressures from India and sector tariffs are not yet included,” the post reads. Let’s take this piece by piece.
iPhone 17 Series: The Price Rise
According to the report, three of the four expected iPhones will go up in price by $50. The three are the iPhone 17 Pro (the iPhone 16 Pro currently costs from $999), iPhone 17 Pro Max (today’s equivalent is $1,199) and the new super-slim phone often nicknamed iPhone 17 Air. There’s no equivalent to this in the current range.
It means that the 17 Pro would start at $1,049, while the 17 Pro Max would cost $1,249 and up).
In good news, there’s no mention of a price increase for the regular iPhone 17 — the iPhone 16 costs from $799.
iPhone 17 Series: Why The Price Rises?
The analyst offers two reasons. First, component costs going up, and second the effect of tariffs imposed on imports from China, where Apple makes the iPhone.
What’s interesting is that the tariffs situation is still volatile, so things may be better, or worse, than expected by the time the new iPhones go on sale.
Additionally, Apple is known to have ramped up production in India so that it can bring in more phones from there, assuming tariffs are lower than for China.
As the Wall Street Journal previously reported, price increases may not be blamed by Apple on either of the above reasons, but rather described as being justified by new features and different design decisions.
That said, there haven’t been price rises in previous years when there have been striking new designs, so customers may make their own judgment.
