iPhone lovers are eagerly waiting to grab the latest iPhone 15 series smartphones that are made in India. Preorders for these new-generation Apple iPhones were scheduled to commence on September 15, with the official sale date marked for September 22, 2023. What’s intriguing about this new launch from Apple is that the pricing strategy for the models, iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus remains unchanged from their predecessors, iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus despite being manufactured in India.
However the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max now come with a slightly higher price tag as compared to the other model of the same series. The iPhone 15 Pro Max is available at Rs 1,59,90015 while the iPhone Pro is priced at Rs 1,34,900. This represents an increase of Rs 20,000 and Rs 5000 respectively. Apple has also upgraded the base storage capacity for the iPhone 15 Pro Max from 128GB to 256GB. Importantly, this price hike for the new iPhone series isn’t exclusive to India but for the whole world.
“Apple is passing down the cost-benefit from manufacturing to consumers by reducing the effective price regularly across channels, rather than changing the pricing strategy,” Shilpi Jain, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research, said in response to emailed queries. “For instance, we witnessed more offers on iPhone 14 from the beginning of this year, which was not the case earlier as models used to get assembled in India after 5-6 months of launch, while iPhone 14 manufacturing started from the launch month itself.”
“We believe Apple will continue with the same strategy as it’s working well in their favour and the brand image remains premium,” she said.
Apple began local production of some iPhone models in India and since then the company’s been on the rise since 2016. According to reports from the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) and government officials, smartphone exports from India exceeded $11 in the fiscal year ending in March, surpassing the $9-10 billion target. Apple accounted for nearly half of these exports of the smartphones.
