iPhone 17 price hike could pave the way for even more expensive Android flagships

Apple’s new iPhones are here, and alongside all the camera, performance, and software upgrades, there’s another change that’s much harder to get excited about: they’re more expensive. The iPhone 18 Pro now starts at $1,199 for 256GB of storage, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at $1,299. That’s a $100 increase over last year’s Pro models. An extra $100 on an already expensive phone might not seem enormous, but the bigger concern is what happens to the rest of the smartphone market now.

Apple may have just made it much easier for Android manufacturers to charge more for their next flagships. And this isn’t just Apple asking more for its shiny new phones. The price increases have spread across much of the lineup. The iPhone 16 now costs $799. The 256GB iPhone 17e has gone from its $599 launch price to $699, while the 256GB iPhone 17 now starts at $899 rather than $799. Even the iPhone Air has climbed from $999 to $1,099.

That’s $100 added at practically every step of Apple’s smartphone ladder, and it’s the older iPhones getting more expensive that could matter most for Android users. Normally, once a phone has been on shelves for a while, you’d expect its price to head in the opposite direction. Apple has just shown that raising the price of a phone that’s already been on sale is a real option.

That could mean a Galaxy phone you’ve been waiting to buy isn’t necessarily safe from a price increase simply because it launched months ago. And with the ongoing RAM crisis making memory more expensive, manufacturers already face higher component costs. Apple has now provided a very visible example of passing some of those costs on to shoppers, even on existing devices.

Of course, none of this guarantees Samsung, Google, or anyone else will suddenly tack $100 onto current or upcoming phones. Android manufacturers still have to compete with one another, and aggressive launch deals, trade-ins, and discounts can soften the blow even when sticker prices rise.

But Apple has changed the benchmark. And with prices climbing on both brand-new iPhones and models already on sale, this may not remain an iPhone problem for long. Android brands now have a convenient excuse to charge more for the flagship coming next, and potentially even the one you can already buy.