A significantly weakened rand has made the iPhone substantially more expensive in South Africa in the past few years, especially when measured against the average salary in the country.
Pre-orders for the recently launched iPhone 16 opened last week, with pricing starting from R20,999 at Takealot and iStore for the 128GB model.
That is around R1,000 cheaper than the starting price of last year’s equivalent iPhone 15.
However, the amount is still very high relative to the average salary in South Africa.
According to Statistics South Africa’s latest Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), the average salary in the country was about R26,793 in the first quarter of 2024.
The R20,999 starting price of the iPhone 16 makes up about 78% of that figure.
Over the past three years, the latest iPhones have all launched at starting prices that are about four-fifths of the average salary in South Africa.
When the first iPhone available in South Africa, the iPhone 3G, debuted locally in 2008, it cost 67% of the average salary.
Its successor, the more generally available iPhone 3GS, cost just 51% of the average South African salary when it rolled out in 2009.
For several years thereafter, the price was lower than 60% of the average local salary. From 2014, the lowest that this percentage has been was 68%.
The price of a new standard iPhone in South Africa has rocketed by about 229% in the past 16 years, while the average salary in the country has grown 182%.
When looking at South African salaries within the local context alone, the 182% increase appears reasonable as the average annual increase has remained above inflation.
The compound annual growth rate of South Africa’s salaries over the past 16 years was 6.7%, higher than the 5.4% average annual inflation rate over the same period.
The table below shows how South Africa’s iPhone launch prices compared with the country’s average salary between 2008 and 2024.
| Launch price | Average salary (based on Stats SA QES) | iPhone price as a proportion of salary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 — iPhone 3G | R6,389 | R9,495 | 67% |
| 2009 — iPhone 3GS | R5,199 | R10,267 | 51% |
| 2010 — iPhone 4 | R6,999 | R11,825 | 59% |
| 2011 — iPhone 4s | R7,699 | R13,005 | 59% |
| 2012 — iPhone 5 | R8,299 | R13,960 | 59% |
| 2013 — iPhone 5c | R8,499 | R14,785 | 59% |
| 2014 — iPhone 6 | R12,500 | R15,770 | 79% |
| 2015 — iPhone 6s | R11,799 | R17,387 | 68% |
| 2016 — iPhone 7 | R14,669 | R18,104 | 81% |
| 2017 — iPhone 8 | R13,499 | R19,608 | 69% |
| 2018 — iPhone XR | R15,999 | R20,860 | 77% |
| 2019 — iPhone 11 | R14,999 | R21,966 | 68% |
| 2020 — iPhone 12 | R17,499 | R22,579 | 78% |
| 2021 — iPhone 13 | R17,299 | R24,051 | 72% |
| 2022 — iPhone 14 | R20,599 | R24,831 | 83% |
| 2023 — iPhone 15 | R21,999 | R26,086 | 84% |
| 2024 — iPhone 16 | R20,999 | R26,793 | 78% |
Blame it on the rand
The main reason South Africans need to spend more of their monthly salary to buy one of Apple’s latest phones is the significant weakening of the rand over the past 16 years.
When the iPhone 3G launched in South Africa in 2008, a dollar cost R8.04, compared with around R18 at the time of the iPhone 16’s launch.
Were the rand still trading at its old level, the $799 price of the iPhone 16 in the US would convert to R6,424 instead of R14,382.
Even if the difference of R6,617 between the US and South African prices for the iPhone 16 were applied to account for taxes and shipping, the total landing price of the iPhone would have been R13,041.
That works out to about 49% of the current average salary.
Looked at from another perspective, one can consider how affordable an iPhone would be for a South African buying the latest model in the US in 2008 and 2024.
The average salary of R9,495 in 2008 converted to $1,181 at R8.04 to the dollar, whereas the R26,793 in 2024 converts to $1,489 at R18.00 to the dollar.
Factoring in the devaluation of the rand against the dollar, or looking at it from the perspective of an American, the average salary in South Africa has increased by just 26% since the first iPhone launched.
On the other side of the Pacific, those in Apple’s home country have effectively been seeing the price of iPhones come down over the past four years.
Since the iPhone 12 was released in 2020, the standard iPhone’s launch price in the US has remained $799.
Meanwhile, South African pricing has increased by R3,500 — or about 20.2% — between the iPhone 12 and iPhone 16 launches.
Over the same period, the rand’s value against the dollar dropped by about 19.8%, showing that the changes are correlated.
The graph below shows the correlation between the South African starting prices of the standard iPhone models and the dollar-to-rand exchange rate in the months of their launches.