It seems like they are considering competing with memory manufacturer Samsung... In contrast to the Mac and iPad impressions
The basic iPhone is expected to be released in the first half of next year... Did you aim to distribute sales by releasing it twice a year?
(Cupertino = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kwon Young-jeon = Apple has focused on its market expansion strategy by minimizing the increase in iPhone prices despite a global surge in memory prices.
Apple set the price of the iPhone 18 Pro, released on the 9th (local time), at $1,199 (KRW 1.99 million), an increase of only $100 (KRW 200,000 based on Korean sales price) from the previous model released last year.
This is in contrast to last June, when the prices of products such as Macs and iPads were increased by up to $300 due to increases in memory prices.
At the time, former Apple CEO Tim Cook even used the expression "flood in 100 years" in a media interview and mentioned the surge in prices of components such as memory as a factor in increasing product costs.
In particular, the iPhone 18 Pro was a product with significant changes in hardware, such as adopting a variable aperture for the camera for the first time among all iPhone products and changing the battery design to increase usage time.
The price of the iPhone Duo, a foldable phone released for the first time on this day, was set at $1,999, $100 higher than the competing Galaxy Z Fold 8, and it appears to be a similar strategy to keep it under $2,000.
Apple's minimization of the iPhone price increase is interpreted as an intention to increase product sales by reducing the price gap with Samsung Electronics even at a time when the entire smartphone market is under pressure to increase prices due to memory shortages.
After the surge in memory prices, the global smartphone market appears to be being reorganized into a two-way battle between Apple and Samsung Electronics.
According to market research company IDC's smartphone market sales and share data for the second quarter, Samsung Electronics and Apple increased their market shares by 5% and 23%, respectively, compared to the previous year, but Chinese companies such as Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, which ranked 3rd to 5th, showed negative growth of 17 to 26%.
The price gap between low-priced smartphones and mid- to high-priced smartphones appears to have narrowed as the prices of low-priced products with low profit margins have risen in line with the increase in prices of components such as memory.
In this situation, Apple, which has to compete with Samsung Electronics, which produces its own memory, appears to have decided to reduce the markup for the iPhone, its most popular product, unlike the Mac and iPad, which have clear target customers.
In relation to this, Apple stated that it wanted to avoid raising the price of the iPhone as much as possible, but due to market conditions such as pressure on component prices, it was forced to raise the price only in areas where it was unavoidable.
Another unusual aspect of Apple's new product announcement event is that it only released the iPhone 18 Pro model and did not introduce the basic iPhone 18.
It is presumed to be a strategic choice to maximize profits by focusing sales on high-end products such as Pro and Duo in a market where parts are difficult to obtain.
This is because releasing a pro model at a product reveal event in the second half of the year, when consumers' attention is focused, can have the effect of increasing the company's average selling price (ASP).
In addition, if the basic model whose release was postponed is released in the first half of the following year, sales that were concentrated only in the second half of the year can be relatively evened out throughout the year, and from a marketing perspective, each product can be spotlighted one by one, which can help increase sales.
In relation to this, Apple explained that it will strive to provide consumers with a wealth of choices by expanding its portfolio.
