I told you recently that the absence of iPhone 16 price leaks is good news for buyers. Unlike the previous two iPhone cycles, there haven’t been any reports to suggest Apple would increase prices across the board. The iPhone 16 Pro is the only exception, as some reports said this model might get the same “price hike” treatment as the iPhone 15 Pro Max did last year.
I put price hike in quotes because it wasn’t technically a price increase. The cheapest iPhone 15 Pro Max costs $1,199, which is $100 more than the cheapest iPhone 14 Pro Max from the prior year. But instead of increasing prices, Apple just removed the 128GB storage option from its lineup. Instead, the 256GB version became the base model, and its price remained unchanged.
A last-minute iPhone 16 specs leak suggests the same thing will happen with the iPhone 16 Pro this year. Apple’s typical $999 price point might be replaced by a $1,099 entry price because Apple will bump the storage of the base iPhone 16 Pro to 2565GB.
TrendForce released a report that walks us through the main iPhone 16 specs and design changes. It aligns with most of the other iPhone 16 rumors out there.
The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max will feature larger displays, at 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch, respectively. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will stay the same. Only the Pro will get ProMotion support (120Hz refresh rate), while the regular models will get 60Hz screens.
All four iPhones will feature next-gen A18 chips built on a new 3nm TSMC N3E process that is more affordable for Apple. The iPhone 16 Pros will get the A18 Pro variant of the chip. The A18 chips will be paired with 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM on all four phones, a requirement for on-device Apple Intelligence support.
When it comes to storage, the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus should start at 128GB and go up to 512 GB. The iPhone 16 Pro models should both start at 256GB and go up to 1TB. TrendForce makes no mention of the 2TB storage tier that appeared in some reports.
The analysts do not present the iPhone 16 Pro price hike as a fact. They speculate it’ll happen because of the iPhone 16 Pro’s big camera upgrade. The phone will have a tetraprism telephoto lens, which is more expensive:
The iPhone 16 Pro, featuring a periscope lens, may follow last year’s Pro Max strategy by starting with a base storage capacity of 256GB, which could help mitigate the perception of a price increase by offering more storage.
That said, the firm suggests that Apple could slightly increase all iPhone 16 prices to “balance higher costs while driving sales and maintaining profitability.” TrendForce signals a “significant rise in memory prices” over last year.
But TrendForce also notes that Apple is expected to maintain a “cautious pricing strategy” considering the current market conditions. The iPhone 15 prices make more sense for the iPhone 16 series. Again, the iPhone 16 Pro would see the only price “hike.”
Finally, the report also says that Apple ordered a combined 86.7 million iPhone 16 units for the second half of 2024. That’s an 8% year-on-year increase that might help Apple surpass Samsung by the end of the year to become the top smartphone vendor by market share. The iPhone 16 price structure will play a key role in that.
Thankfully, we don’t have to wait that long. Come Monday, we’ll know everything about the iPhone 16 phones, including the prices.
