Apple raises prices on existing iPhones by $100 right after its launch event

Apple raised prices on older iPhones the same day it launched new ones

Immediately after its September launch event, Apple increased the price of every iPhone it still sells by $100, a move that took effect on the day of the event and applies to buyers right now. Both The Verge and TechCrunch report the change, which upends the company's long-standing habit of cutting prices on older models whenever a new generation arrives.

The new prices

According to The Verge, the increases look like this:

• iPhone 16: from $699 to $799
• iPhone 17e (256GB): from a $599 launch price to $699
• iPhone 17 (256GB): from $799 to $899
• iPhone Air: from $999 to $1,099

TechCrunch lists the same new starting prices on Apple's online store. The outlet also reports two related changes: Apple has discontinued the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the increases are even steeper in some international markets, with prices in India reportedly rising by around 20.5%.

What was announced at the event

The pricing shift came alongside Apple's biggest hardware announcements of the year. The Verge describes the "Surprise and shine" event as the debut of the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable iPhone, and the iPhone 18 Pro. TechCrunch, meanwhile, says Apple unveiled the iPhone 18 and the iPhone Duo. The two accounts differ on one point: The Verge notes that the base iPhone 18 was absent from the event itself, which centred on the highest-end models starting at $1,199. Either way, the practical result is that there is no newly cheap entry point in the lineup — every iPhone you can buy today costs more than it did before the event.

A break from tradition

The strategy is unusual for Apple. In a typical launch cycle, last year's models slide down the price ladder to make room for the new flagships, giving budget-conscious buyers a predictable moment to pick up a discounted device. This year the ladder moved in the opposite direction, and by a flat $100 across the board rather than a targeted adjustment on one model.

The hike was not entirely out of the blue, though. TechCrunch notes that speculation about price increases had been building ahead of the event.

Why Apple did it

The biggest pressure, according to TechCrunch, is a global shortage of memory and storage chips. Demand for those components has surged as AI companies and cloud providers build out increasingly large data centres, pushing costs up across the industry. TechCrunch points to a June interview in which Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal that Apple could no longer fully absorb the rising cost of memory and storage chips. Roughly a week after those comments, Apple raised prices across its Mac and iPad lineups, making the iPhone increase part of a broader pattern rather than a one-off.

TechCrunch cites two additional factors. Apple may want its pricing to track with rising prices from rivals such as Samsung and Google. And the company's new Upgrade program, which lets customers spread the cost of an iPhone over monthly payments, could make a higher sticker price feel less painful to consumers, softening the reaction to the increase.

Why it matters

This is one of the clearest signs yet that the AI infrastructure buildout is reaching consumer wallets. Data-centre demand for memory and storage has inflated component costs, and Apple has decided to pass those costs on rather than absorb them — first on Macs and iPads, and now on every iPhone in the catalogue.

The move also removes a reliable buying strategy. Shoppers who wait for a new iPhone launch to get last year's model at a discount just watched that discount turn into a premium. And because the increases are even larger in markets like India, the effect is amplified in regions where price sensitivity is highest. If component shortages persist, the question is no longer whether gadget prices drift upward over time, but how quickly — and Apple has signalled it is willing to reprice existing products mid-cycle to keep pace.