Foreign media analyzed the prices of Apple mobile phones over the years: iPhone X is the starting point

After the September launch event, the topic of the "expensive" prices of iPhone XS and XS Max is still being discussed by many people. Foreign media gsmarena has counted the prices of iPhones in recent years and concluded that the emergence of iPhone X has raised the overall price of Apple phones to a higher level.

Over the years, the price of Apple phones has undoubtedly increased a lot. Before compiling this table, the editor of gsmarena said that they always believed that the price increase process was gradual. But judging from the results of the table, the price increase has only happened in the past two years.

Early iPhones relied heavily on carrier subsidies, so their pricing is difficult to calculate. So this statistic starts with the iPhone 4S in 2011, and the pricing is based on the retail price when it was launched in Germany to avoid discounts midway. BTW: Although the pricing in Germany is different from that in China, the overall trend is the same.

The first chart shows the new iPhone models released each year and their prices. There are three main lines, including the basic models such as iPhone 5/6/7 (blue line, moderate price), the large-screen models after adding Plus (red line, high-priced models), and low-priced products such as iPhone 5c and SE (green line).

Before 2017, iPhone 8 was an "affordable" model, but in this year, there were actually two large-screen models, namely iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. iPhone X actually became a springboard for Apple's mobile phone price increase. It was still a high-priced model in 2017, but it was replaced by iPhone XS in 2018, so the price of the basic model suddenly rose. The blue line and the red line have both increased significantly, and the green line has jumped from SE to XR, and the price is equal to the previous basic model.

This has resulted in a step up in all three price ranges of iPhones, which is also why people feel they are expensive.

But Apple is not without lower-priced options. In the past, they would lower the price of the previous generation of products, or reduce the memory appropriately to make their own low-priced products; now that the price of high-end models has increased, this behavior still exists. Apple's official website is still selling iPhone 7. As long as you don't mind your phone being two years behind, this is a cost-effective choice. It's just that the price difference from the cheapest option (32GB version of iPhone 7) to the cheapest 512GB version of iPhone XS Max is even bigger. Apple has also interspersed iPhone 8, 8 Plus, XR and other models, making more price segmentation, giving users more room for choice.

But to be honest, the price increase shows no signs of slowing down - it may continue to rise in 2019. As for this year, the number of iPhones sold may not increase much due to the continuous increase in average selling price, but revenue has increased.

As long as Apple can convince a critical mass of people that increasingly expensive iPhones are worth the money, they don’t need to sell more phones.