At its much-awaited Surprise and Shine event last night, Apple launched its new iPhone lineup, including the iPhone 18 Pro models and its first foldable phone — the iPhone Duo. While the Duo has grabbed attention worldwide, it has also become the biggest talking point for Apple fans in India. And let me tell you, not just because of its design and features — but also because of its price.
The company has introduced the its first foldable iPhone at a starting price of 2,99,900 in India The same phone starts at $1,999 in the US (around Rs 1,90,578). This makes the iPhone Duo one of the most expensive smartphones available in India. While the higher price in India can partly be explained by taxes, import costs and other local expenses, the gap is still very big for buyers.
iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max Get Rs 30,000 Hike
The price increase is not limited to the foldable iPhone. Apple has also increased the India prices of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max compared with last year’s iPhone 17 Pro models.
The iPhone 18 Pro starts at Rs 1,64,900 while the iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at Rs 1,79,900. Both models are around Rs 30,000 more expensive than their respective iPhone 17 Pro counterparts at launch. For buyers planning to upgrade, this is a serious jump.
Another major shocker is that the price of the last year’s iPhone 17 base variant has also been heavily increased in the Indian market. The Apple iPhone 17 base variant with 256GB internal storage that made a debut in the Indian market at a starting price of Rs 82,900 is now shipping at a price of Rs 99,900 with immediate effect.
Why Are iPhones Getting More Expensive?
Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, told Times Now Tech: “India pricing is steep and the difference is primarily due to the fact that initial Duo sales will not be ‘Made in India’ for some time. Consequently, imported units attract full import duty-making them significantly more expensive-along with GST and the impact of a weaker rupee so in all at 40%+ net impact (17% (Import duty)+18% (GST)+5-6% forex).’
“Having said that the initial adoption of Duo will be driven by excellent form factor, the bigger screen value proposition and great UI experience which will make loyal Apple users and early adopters of technology to go for it especially the ones who were waiting for a apple foldable form factor for long time,” he stressed.
“Overall, we believe that The iPhone Duo is set to expand India’s foldable segment by value rather than volume initially and bring the spotlight on the foldable segment. Many will kind of bookmark this device as their future potential purchase as well. All this is good for a foldable segment. Additionally, Apple has given a clear signal that foldable devices are likely to become a key segment of ultra-premium smartphones,” Pathak added.
According to him, In terms of numbers, the Counterpoint expects Apple to keep leading in revenue terms while volume likely to take hit especially with a difficult comparison from last festive season and absence of base 18. Apple grew by 2 per cent YoY in Jan-July, 2026, while pro series grew 32 per cent YoY.
“Overall we now expect a low single digit decline in volume but will still increase by 6-7 per cent in India,” he said.
“This value growth is because of new fold and also the mix of pro series within Apple portfolio is increasing- from 11 per cent in 2025 to expected 15 per cent by end of 2026 but still large part of sales are driven by base models which have become now expensive starting from 16, 17. A lot will also depend on the upcoming festive season where we think older iPhones even including 15 will still be selling.
Also a lot will depend on the affordability levers, trade-in offers which will become more. Another point is we expect refurbished iPhones to grow more than expected with new pricing as trade-ins will be more than expected,” Pathak added.
According to senior analyst Abhilash Kumar, India pricing is high compared to US driven by not just continuous memory price increase but also foreign exchange headwinds of USD vs INR.
“Apple might not want to increase on a weekly and monthly basis as INR depreciates so it might have taken one shot. Additionally, for Duo, the device will not be assembled in India in first batch and hence complete built unit will be imported in India leading to higher tax as well,” Kumar, Lead Research Advisor (Director) at SAG told Times Now Tech.
Prabhu Ram, VP-Industry Research Group at CyberMedia Research (CMR) also told Times Now Tech: “Given the ongoing RAMageddon, Apple has chosen not to fully absorb component inflation on the Pro tier this year. The 20–22 per cent Pro price increase is materially steeper than in recent generations, representing a partial pass-through of higher memory and process-node costs,’
“However, the economics of the 2nm A20 Pro give Apple greater pricing headroom on the higher-ASP Pro tier, allowing it to recover a larger share of these rising costs without materially weakening demand in the segment that matters most. The pricing equation in India also reflects rupee depreciation, import duties and channel economics,” he added.
Speaking to Times Now Tech, Faisal Kawoosa, founder and chief analyst at techARC: “I was expecting Duo to be starting Rs 2.5L, its more than that. think Apple understands that at this moment there will be a few thousand buyers of Duo in India and this ultra niche positioning can be leveraged.”
“Also, this still keeps them differentiated and above others, including Samsung. So the messaging is clear that Apple Duo is not an alternative to Samsung Fold. Its more than that,” he noted.
