Apple’s iPhone price rise mostly misses South Africa

South Africans buying the entry-level iPhone 18 Pro will pay R200 more than the iPhone 17 Pro cost at launch a year ago, even though Apple has raised the price of the same phone by 9% in the US.

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at R28 799 for the 256GB model, an increase of 0.7%, according to pre-order pricing from iStore, an Apple retailer. The iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at R31 299 — exactly what its predecessor cost in September 2025. At 512GB, both are cheaper than last year: the Pro is down 1.2% to R33 599 and the Pro Max down 2.2% to R35 999. Digicape, another Apple retailer, has published similar pre-order pricing.

The reason is the relatively strong rand.

Apple lifted the US starting price of the Pro from US$1 099 to $1 199 and the Pro Max from $1 199 to $1 299, increases of 9.1% and 8.3% respectively. Over the same 12 months, the rand strengthened by roughly 7.7% against the dollar, trading near R16.04 in early September against R17.37 at the time of the iPhone 17 launch. The two cancel each other out almost exactly.

That is where the good news ends.

At 1TB, the iPhone 18 Pro costs R43 299, up 9.6% on last year, and the Pro Max R45 699, up 8.8%. The 2TB Pro Max has gone from R52 499 to R59 999, a rise of 14.3% and R7 500 in cash terms. Apple has also added a 2TB option to the smaller Pro for the first time, at R57 699.

The pattern is consistent: the more storage a buyer wants, the worse the year-on-year comparison gets. Apple has repriced its storage tiers upwards, and a stronger rand only partly offsets it.

Even so, South African buyers have come off better than American ones at the top of the range. In the US, the 2TB Pro Max has gone from $1 999 to $2 499, an increase of 25%.

Two structural changes make the comparison less tidy than it looks. Apple did not announce a standard iPhone 18 at its September event — the base model and the 18e are expected only in the first half of 2027, leaving this year’s line-up Pro-only alongside the foldable iPhone Duo, for which South African pricing is not yet available. And the iPhone 17’s 2TB option existed on the Pro Max alone, so the smaller Pro has no like-for-like predecessor at that capacity.

Read: Why Apple can’t tell you who its R50 000 iPhone is for

Both new models run Apple’s A20 Pro, its first chip built on a 2nm process. Component costs for memory and storage have risen across the industry this year, which is the most obvious explanation for Apple charging more for capacity while holding its entry prices closer to flat.  — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media