Apple holds down new iPhone prices amid threats of Trump tariffs

New York [US], September 10: Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab on Tuesday introduced an upgraded line of new iPhones, including a slimmer iPhone Air, and held prices steady amid U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs that have hurt the company's profit.
The iPhone Air comes with a high-density battery and a brand new processor, and will be priced starting at $999. Wall Street had been watching to see whether the company would increase the price of iPhones, or seek alternative routes to make up for tariff costs, such as increasing the cost of iPhone versions with more storage.
The model was the star of the company's annual product launch event, with CEO Tim Cook saying "we're taking the biggest leap ever for iPhone." Apple called it the most durable iPhone yet. It will use the A19 Pro, a processor chip that it said it had tweaked for better energy efficiency and performance to match the device's thinner battery. Rivals including Samsung already sell phones marketed for their extremely thin profile.
The iPhone Air's price is slotted in between the company's other models, as analysts had predicted. Apple also launched the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro, the latest upgrade to its flagship smartphone, as well as a new version of its AirPods Pro wireless headphones and a blood pressure monitor in its latest Apple Watch.
A 256-gigabyte version of the iPhone 17 base model will start at $799, the same as the previous iPhone 16 model with half the storage space. The iPhone 17 Pro will start at $1,099 for a 256-gigabyte model, the same as the previous year's model with the same storage size, but without the option of a smaller-capacity phone at a lower $999 like the iPhone 16 Pro.
Apple did not raise the price on watch models or the new AirPods Pro 3 either.
The prices were an indication that Apple was ready to swallow the cost of tariffs to ward off competition from Samsung (005930.KS), opens new tab, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google and domestic rivals in China, even as it has predicted that the levies would cost it more than .
Apple shares were down 1.6% after the company announced pricing of the smartphones.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation