Here’s What You Could’ve Bought For The Price Of An iPhone

There’s a reason that Apple is the world’s first company to surpass a valuation of one trillion dollars. In fact, with its current market capitalization of USD 2.40 trillion, it surpasses the annual GDP of several countries such as Canada, Italy and Brazil. The most popular Apple product has always been the iPhone range, irrespective of the price tag it carries.

While the iPhone is not an apple the doctor recommends, it has seen an exponential growth in popularity, while also upping its retail price with every iteration. In its latest avatar, the price of certain variants of the iPhone 14 is equivalent to some performance supersports! Hence, we bring you the iPhone’s price evolution in India over the last five years, and give you two-wheeler alternatives for this price.

Note: Prices of all two-wheelers are ex-showroom Delhi

2017

There were two types of iPhones launched in 2017, one being the iPhone 8 series, a natural evolution of the previous generations of iPhones, the most expensive one retailing equivalent to what the ABS variant of the 2017 TVS Apache RTR 180 was priced at that time (Rs 89,000). An interesting tidbit is that the Apache was also the most affordable motorcycle with dual-channel ABS at the time.

The iPhone X however was a special tenth-anniversary edition device, and so it also came with a special high-end price tag in India. The price of an iPhone crossed a lakh for the first time, which brought it on par with what a Hero Karizma ZMR would cost: Rs 1.08 lakh.

2018

While the iPhone XR was the most affordable new iPhone in 2018, prices of the iPhone XS Max shot incredibly high, with the 512GB variant being almost equivalent to the non-ABS variant of the KTM 200 Duke, which was priced at Rs 1.51 lakh. Imagine a phone costing almost as much as a modern, liquid-cooled, powerful Austrian naked!

2019

With the launch of the iPhone 11, Apple managed to bring the starting price down significantly in the country, while the cost of two-wheelers reeled under inflation. The top-end variant of Apple’s flagship phone retails at a price similar to the ABS variant of the Yamaha R15 V3, which cost Rs 1.39 lakh back then.

2020

Get latest updates on
the automobile community

Login Now

Following the Indian government’s increase in GST rates for smartphones from 12 percent to 18 percent, the cost of the iPhone 12 Pro Max shot past the Rs 1.5 lakh mark, to retail at the exact same price as the Bajaj Dominar 250, which was launched in March 2020.

2021

With the launch of the iPhone 13, Apple began offering 1TB of ROM size for the first time, which meant that the flagship variants with this capacity commanded a higher premium, which was around the same as the MotoGP edition of the Suzuki Gixxer SF 250, that retailed at Rs 1,76,941.

2022

With the latest iPhone 14 prices inching the closest to the Rs 1.90 lakh mark, you can choose to opt for the recently launched Yamaha R15M MotoGP edition, which retails only Rs 1,000 more than the 1TB variant of the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Here are more options to choose for the same price.

Is the iPhone justifying its massive price tag, or would you rather opt for a two-wheeler? Well, you know where our heart lies.

Sent from my iPhone