iPhone prices in South Africa
Apple’s latest generation of iPhone — the iPhone 16 — went on sale in South Africa on Friday, 20 September 2024. Prices start at R20,599 locally, depending on where you buy.
2024 was the first year in which iPhone pre-orders went live in South Africa on the same date as the US, and the new generation of iPhone launched locally at a lower price than the previous generation.
For reference, Apple’s iPhone 15 launched at a local price of R21,999, while the iPhone 16 started at R21,049 from Digicape in South Africa.
Apple said it designed the new iPhone line-up with Apple Intelligence software at its core.
“It puts powerful generative models right at the core of your iPhone,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“The next generation of iPhone has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up.”
Standout features of the latest iPhone include a dedicated Camera Control button on all four variations of the iPhone 16 line-up and new in-house chips.
Apple’s iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus pack the A18 chip, which features a 16-core neural engine. The Cupertino-based tech company said the new chip enables a slew of artificial intelligence features.
These features include a voice assistant with a deeper understanding of language. This enables it to understand prompts even when users stumble over words.
They will also support Visual Intelligence, which enables users to learn more about items, events, and landmarks in a shot through the Camera Control button.
Users can click and hold the Camera Control button to access detailed information about the object in the image.
The higher-priced iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max pack Apple’s A18 Pro SoC. It has a 16-core neural engine capable of 25 trillion operations per second, a six-core GPU, and a six-core CPU.
“This is the fastest CPU in any smartphone,” Apple said.
iPhone prices — 2009 to 2024
MyBroadband tracked local iPhone launch prices from 2009 to 2024 and found that launch prices have increased four-fold since the iPhone 3GS launched in South Africa.
The iPhone 3GS was launched in South Africa at a price of R5,199. At the time, the rand was trading at around R7.40 to the dollar.
Apple’s iPhone 16 starts at R21,049 through Digicape in South Africa. South Africans are paying a roughly R6,800 premium — or 47.5% more — for the latest iPhone to cover import duties, shipping, foreign exchange costs, and VAT.
Based on the analysis, it is clear that fluctuations in the dollar-rand exchange rate substantially impact iPhone prices in South Africa.
However, other factors can contribute to differences between US and South African pricing, including shipping fee hikes, the VAT adjustment from 14% to 15% in April 2018, and changes in foreign exchange forward-cover costs.
Foreign exchange forward-cover contracts protect importers from fluctuating exchange rates.
The rand has weakened markedly and become more volatile over the years, which can make it more expensive for distributors like Core Group to buy forward-cover contracts.
The table and chart below show how South African launch pricing for Apple iPhone models has changed since 2009.
The graph also shows the correlation between the fluctuation in dollar-rand exchange rates and local pricing for each year’s iPhone model.
| Year and model | SA launch price | US launch price | Difference | Dollar-rand exchange rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 — iPhone 3GS | R5,199 | $599 | R4,433 | R766 | R7.40 |
| 2010 — iPhone 4 | R6,999 | $599 | R4,235 | R2,764 | R7.07 |
| 2011 — iPhone 4s | R7,699 | $649 | R4,816 | R2,883 | R7.42 |
| 2012 — iPhone 5 | R8,299 | $649 | R5,329 | R2,970 | R8.21 |
| 2013 — iPhone 5c | R8,499 | $649 | R6,367 | R2,132 | R9.81 |
| 2014 — iPhone 6 | R12,500 | $649 | R7,139 | R5,361 | R11.00 |
| 2015 — iPhone 6s | R11,799 | $649 | R8,755 | R3,044 | R13.49 |
| 2016 — iPhone 7 | R14,669 | $649 | R9,209 | R5,460 | R14.19 |
| 2017 — iPhone 8 | R13,499 | $699 | R9,199 | R4,300 | R13.16 |
| 2018 — iPhone XR | R15,999 | $749 | R11,145 | R4,854 | R14.88 |
| 2019 — iPhone 11 | R14,999 | $699 | R10,198 | R4,801 | R14.59 |
| 2020 — iPhone 12 Mini | R15,999 | $699 | R11,485 | R4,514 | R16.43 |
| 2021 — iPhone 13 Mini | R14,999 | $699 | R10,087 | R4,912 | R14.43 |
| 2022 — iPhone 14 | R20,599 | $799 | R13,998 | R6,601 | R17.52 |
| 2023 — iPhone 15 | R21,999 | $799 | R14,414 | R7,585 | R18.04 |
| 2024 — iPhone 16 | R21,049 | $799 | R14,334 | R6,715 | R17.94 |
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