Malcolm Owen
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.
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.
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Stephen Silver
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22 Comments
i certainly can’t imagine it costing less than that.
I will move to Samsung or pixel when they come out with a new flip. Larger phones are to heavy to carry around
There has still not been a convincing use case made for this, beyond the novelty of it, and by definition, novelty wears off quickly.
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.
That's nuts. Don't think people will want it (only the have to have's will), the current format works fine.
If this device is 3% of iPhone sales, it would be an incredible success. The market is technophiles. People who want high end novelty devices. It doesn't have to sell to everyone. Just the top 2, 3, 5% of the market.
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.