Russia warns of possible price hike for iPhone 16 and 17

According to retailers, the traditional price drop for older devices after the release of new lineups is not expected this time. They cite the weakening ruble, rising logistics costs, higher procurement prices, and Apple's own $100 price increase on previous-generation smartphones as reasons.

Citilink forecasts a price increase of 10% or more for the iPhone 16 and 17, tying the main jump to October, when previously purchased batches run out. At the same time, M.Video believes that built-up device inventories will temporarily hold price tags back, while DNS reported that it is not yet recording any cost increases for older models. Mobile Research Group analyst Eldar Murtazin estimated current warehouse stocks of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 lineups in Russia at 300,000–400,000 units, noting that high competition and weak demand could prevent prices from rising until the end of the year.

However, price increases have already been recorded on certain platforms. According to Yandex Market data, between September 7 and September 13, the iPhone 17 Pro Max rose in price by an average of 10%, while the iPhone 17 Pro and 16 Pro Max increased by 5% each. At the same time, the Avito platform recorded a sharp surge in demand during the first week of September: the number of searches for the iPhone 17 Pro with 256 GB of storage increased 5.8 times.