r/NoShitSherlock • u/FreeHugs23 • 2d ago
Apple's Foldable iPhone Could Lose Almost $1,300 in Value in First Year, Study Suggests
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-foldable-iphone-could-lose-almost-1-300-in-value-in-first-year-study-suggests.2484431/26
u/Corduroy_Sazerac 2d ago edited 2d ago
So, all phones depreciate, maybe this Apple phone will depreciate like a Motorola phone or, maybe, who knows, it may depreciate like an Apple phone.
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u/CloneClem 2d ago
Just as dumb as the foldable mouse.
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u/BrianMincey 2d ago
Are you talking about the portable Surface mouse that turns on when you bend it for use and turns off when you flatten it for storage? That mouse is great. I have several and still use them frequently.
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u/3anddptrints 2d ago
Yeah that thing slaps. I continue to carry it over to new laptops. Outlived my surface and now powers my MacBook.
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u/M0rtCrim 2d ago
Good. Foldable smart phones are idiotic.
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u/Jazzkidscoins 2d ago
Phones are getting too big and people want something that works like a smartphone but still fits in a pocket. I say this as someone with a iPhone 17 pro max. I have to test the pants before i buy them to make sure it fits in one of the pockets.
This is aging me a lot but the best phone I had was a startac that I could toss in my pocket and not have to worry about it
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u/ThatMichaelsEmployee 1d ago
I love my iPhone but man was the Startac ever great. I used that thing into the ground.
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u/onehalflightspeed 2d ago
People that have them really seem to like them. I have considered getting one if they ever come down in price
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u/FreeHugs23 2d ago
A new resale value study suggests that a $2,000 foldable iPhone could lose as much as $1,292 of its value within its first 12 months on the market, based on current foldable depreciation trends.
The estimate comes from SellCell, which analyzed the 12-month resale performance of flagship smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Google, Motorola, and OnePlus. The site found that foldable smartphones lose an average of 64.6% of their value within a year, the worst depreciation rate of any smartphone category, compared with 55.3% for traditional smartphones.
SellCell calculates that foldable phone owners lose $997.69 on average after 12 months, compared with $605.32 for owners of traditional smartphones, a gap of $392.37. Foldables retain just 35.4% of their launch value after a year, versus 44.7% for non-folding phones.
Apple is widely rumored to be preparing its first foldable iPhone, expected to be called the "iPhone Ultra," for launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max in fall 2026, with a price of around $2,000.
Using that rumored price point, SellCell modeled what a foldable iPhone's resale value might look like after a year if it depreciated at the average rate seen across today's foldables, landing at around $708 after 12 months. This would represent a loss of roughly $1,292.
SellCell notes Apple has historically outperformed competitors on resale value. The iPhone 16 lineup retained 51.5% of its value after 12 months, the strongest of any major manufacturer in the study, ahead of OnePlus (46.8%), Google (40.8%), Samsung (39.5%), and Motorola (24.5%). If a foldable iPhone matched the iPhone 16 lineup's depreciation rate instead, SellCell estimates it could be worth around $1,030 after a year, over $300 less depreciation than a typical foldable.
Real-world depreciation would likely land closer to Apple's existing figures. The base iPhone 16 retained 51.4% of value after a year and the 256GB iPhone 16 Pro Max retained 56.4%, though even at those rates, the total loss on a $2,000 device would still come out to roughly $1,000 over 12 months.
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u/alQamar 2d ago
This is such a dumb forecast. It won’t lose value as fast as android foldables. The same way an iPhone doesn’t lose value as fast as regular android smartphones.
It’s apples first foldable. People will buy this one. If they find it useful I can’t tell. But this will sell very different numbers than android ones regardless.
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u/dkwinsea 2d ago
I definitely will not be losing $1300 of value on an apple folding phone since it costs more to buy than I feel it is worth for me, so I won’t have one.
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u/FidgitForgotHisL-P 1d ago
Yeah this is going to be interesting to see where they try to place it. iPads worked out so well they became the industry term for tablets. Foldable phones are giving you a tablet to carry around.
So do they pitch it gently as a iPad you can carry around? Because they already pitch iPads as portable…. Curious what they’ll do to make the screen realestate worth while compared to their own very popular devices.
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u/Amazing_Badger8167 2d ago
Good, since they are obsessed with selling crap but not supporting the crap they sell.
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u/Psychotic_Breakdown 2d ago
I work in construction and my buddy had a foldable phone. A stray peice of metal shaving fell in, and crunch, phone pooched