Back in 2017, customers balked on the thought of a $1,000 iPhone. Now, some consumers might find yourself paying double that in the event that they select Apple’s newest top-of-the-line mannequin.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max, the bigger variant of Apple’s Pro telephone that launches right now together with the iPhone 17, 17 Pro and iPhone Air, prices $2,000 if patrons select the model with two terabytes (2TB) of storage. Phones with additional storage usually value extra, however that is the primary time Apple has launched a 2TB possibility for the iPhone, making it one of the costly telephones available on the market.
The launch comes as Apple faces mounting stress to spice up iPhone gross sales amid issues about its AI strategy. Offering a dearer value tier for the iPhone permits Apple to generate extra income with out promoting extra models throughout what has been, till not too long ago, a rocky smartphone market. Some analysts say customers, tightening their purse strings due to inflation and tariffs, have been reducing again spending on smartphones.
Apple’s new iPhones ought to modestly elevate the product’s common promoting value, or the common value iPhones are bought at, stated Angelo Zino, senior vp at funding analysis agency CFRA. That’s a metric analysts monitor as a signal of how profitable the iPhone is for Apple.
But Zino largely expects the value enhance to be pushed by demand for the iPhone Air, which is $100 dearer than final 12 months’s iPhone 16 Plus. The 2TB storage possibility is a means for Apple to distinguish its high-end telephones from the competitors, he says. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra and Google’s Pixel 10 Pro XL prime out at 1TB of storage.
“I think it’s an interesting kind of offering, in the sense that I don’t believe there’s another phone out there that offers a two terabyte internal storage,” he stated.
The $2,000 iPhone could also be Apple’s costliest telephone but, but it surely’s not fairly as dear as foldable telephones from Samsung and Google with 1TB of storage. The 1TB model of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 prices $2,419.99, whereas the Pixel 10 Pro Fold with the identical quantity of storage is priced at $2,149.
Many patrons aren’t more likely to instantly face that price ticket since carriers usually provide trade-in offers and fee plans to melt the blow. Fifty-five p.c of telephone consumers within the United States — together with those that buy flip telephones and fundamental cell phones — buy their gadget by means of an installment plan, in line with Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
And it’s consumers searching for cheaper telephones, not premium units just like the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which are extra more likely to maintain off on upgrading.
“Economic uncertainty tends to compress demand at the lower end of the market, where price sensitivity is highest,” the International Data Corporation’s Nabila Popal wrote in a report earlier this month.
Apple’s Pro iPhones are likely to promote higher than the usual entry-level fashions, significantly within the United States, in line with CFRA’s Zino and Josh Lowitz, an analyst for Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
The elevated storage can also be one other signal that Apple is advertising its “pro” iPhones in the direction of content material creators and video editors. Large multimedia recordsdata usually take up more room, and the Pro fashions additionally embody help for instruments used to sync video throughout a number of cameras. Apple stated it filmed its September launch occasion on an iPhone 17 Pro.
Lowitz famous that 2TB is taken into account a lot of storage even for a laptop computer. Those who buy 2TB laptops usually work in fields that require saving a lot of huge recordsdata regionally, like graphic designers who must protect a whole bunch of various design variations for tasks.
“Other than people with extraordinary video usage, two terabytes is just … it’s a crazy amount of storage,” he stated.
Apple introduced its new iPhone lineup on September 9 on its campus in Cupertino, California, forward of the Friday launch. The Pro fashions embody a redesigned again panel and a digital camera with a longer zoom, together with prolonged battery life. The iPhones even have higher efficiency due to Apple’s new chip and an up to date design that permits for higher warmth dissipation, Apple claims.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives predicts iPhone preorders will enhance 5 to 10% in comparison with final 12 months for the reason that agency estimates 20% of world iPhone homeowners haven’t upgraded previously 4 years.