iPhone Fold rumored to cost over $2000
The iPhone Fold will be an extremely expensive smartphone to purchase, with a leaker claiming it could be priced at more than $2,000 at launch.
A render of what the iPhone Fold could look like - Image Credit: AppleInsider
The iPhone Fold is a long-rumored smartphone that Apple has reportedly been working on for years. While it is expected to be a premium offering whenever it ships, the price to consumers could be extremely high relative to the typical iPhone releases.
According to serial leaker "Instant Digital" on Weibo, the price could end up being between $2,100 and $2,300 to consumers. Though they do not disclose their actual working out of that price range, the leaker claims it's based on Apple's typical iPhone profit margin.
Instant Digital, also known as "Setsuna Digital" has a reasonable track record, including claims about the last few generations of iPhone. However, there have been occasional misses in terms of accuracy too.
An expensive proposition
As part of the claim, Instant Digital comments it's "not much more expensive than Samsung." For reference, the current Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 is priced on the company's website at $1,899 at its lowest capacity, $2,019 for the mid-tier capacity, and $2,259 for the 1TB maximum capacity.
The propsed Apple pricing is high if you compare against other foldables on the market. Continuing with Samsung, its Flip6 model ranges from $1,099 to $1,219, practically half the claimed iPhone Fold price.
The Googel Pixel 9 Pro Fold is closer to the leaker's price range, going from $1,799 for the lowest capacity model, to $1,919 for the highest. The OnePlus Open is also reasonably priced in comparison to the prospective iPhone Fold, at $1,699.99.
As a folding device and a brand new product category for Apple, the iPhone Fold is always expected to be a more premium product than the standard iPhone. With more moving parts and increased research and development, the price can only go up.
What helps the Instant Digital leak is that analysts have made similar guesses. Barclays analyst Tim Long said in March that the iPhone Fold could have a starting price at around $2,300, with the upper bound being a few hundred dollars more based on typical storage price increases.
Ming-Chi Kuo also made a March forecast, offering that it will cost between $2,000 and $2,500.
Rumor Score: Possible
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Comments
With a starting price $400-$700 more than the most expensive iPhone Pro Max, about the same as the most expensive MacBook Air, and about even with MacBook Pro starting prices, who is going to buy this phone?
The Vision Pro is pretty expensive, but it actually introduces new and different utility beyond the novelty that you wear fit on your face. The folding phone does none of that.
None of it makes any sense, and in all probability, none of it will ever see the light of day. The problem is that its continued non-existence will leave open the opportunity for "analysts" to keep predicting it, and sites like AI to keep reporting on those predictions.
A lot of these buyers get the iPhone Pro Max. If Apple converts some of them to the iPhone Fold, that's a gigantic win because ASPs for iPhone Fold will be 2x to 2.5x. I think Apple would have done it two or three years ago except for issues with the crease and the friction of the display cover.
They really should go with a glass display cover with a 0.5" bend diameter, or 0.25" bend radius. Would make for the hinge end to be 0.6, 0.7 inches thick (14 to 16 mm), but I would much prefer no crease with a smooth surface over the existing designs.
It will finally stop the whining on tech sites for Apple to make a folding phone.
Apple is having a tough time competing in China. There are a few reasons for that but I'll highlight just two.
NEV sales are going through the roof there and the 'smarts' in those cars are very smart - blowing way past anything CarPlay can offer. Hundreds of thousands (and rising fast) of those cars are running HarmonyOS so anyone with a Huawei phone tied to a Huawei-partnered car will see the benefits. The opposite is also true. If one of those cars takes your fancy, getting a Huawei phone (or tablet, wearable, TV...) makes a lot of sense.
Xiaomi is another example although so far they only have one car.
What can Apple do to counter that situation if they have no competing product?
Folding phones are reaching maturity in many ways but remain expensive. That keeps the marketshare of folding phones down.
Prices especially of flip phones however, are seeing more affordable versions come to market.
Similar to the car situation if you want a folding experience, Apple is not going to get the sale because it has no folding option. You would have to look elsewhere.
It has been said that if the Huawei Mate XT hit sales of 500,000 units (unthinkable to my mind) it would bring in $1.5B in revenue. Yet just last week there were (unsubstantiated) reports of it having sold 400,000 units (in spite of the incredible price tag). In basically one quarter.
That model has now got a 'global' release so it's anybody's guess how many will be sold. Prices start at 3,699€ in the EU.
Now the Pura X has hit the Chinese market too with it's unusual form factor but great screen ratio.
Throw in the likes of Oppo, Honor, Samsung etc and there are lots of folding options to choose from and thinness, weight, creases etc are beginning to look like non-issues.
It's hard not to see Apple losing sales (especially in China) as a result of not having a folding phone.
There will clearly be a threshold to lost sales beyond which Apple must respond. Perhaps these reports are simply Apple gearing up to stop a trickle of lost sales turning into a flood.
The outlier here is maybe Google. While the US is shielded (quite literally now) from a wide spread of folding/flip options on home soil, if a Pixel Fold came to market offering Chinese level engineering, Apple would possibly be in a spot of bother (assuming there is untapped demand for foldables there).
It may be the case that Apple "needs" a folding phone for the China market. Hard to know for sure without knowing how much market share high-end folding phones actually have. That aside, I could see it being difficult, especially in China, to maintain perception of being a premium, "luxury" brand when you're not competing at the ultra premium end of the market while your main competitors are. I also think that the competition in China to leap ahead to the next big "feature" is especially brutal. That Huawei XT--apart from its more than a Vision Pro price tag!--is a case in point. Not just a folding phone, but a TRI-panel folding phone. To be honest, THAT design makes more sense to me than the dual panel folds because one of the screen panels on the Huawei faces outward when folded--so you can use it as a normal candy bar phone with no need to unfold it unless you want the bigger screen, which goes up to 10 inches with all 3 panels unfolded.