Apple Brings iPhone 18 Pro to India at ₹1,64,900 as Foldable iPhone Duo Debuts Near ₹3 Lakh in Ternus's First Launch

Apple staged its biggest product launch of the year on 9 September at its Cupertino headquarters, unveiling the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max alongside its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo — and for Indian buyers, the numbers are steep. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at ₹1,64,900 and the Pro Max at ₹1,79,900, according to reports in Outlook India, Digit and The Sunday Guardian, while the foldable iPhone Duo opens at ₹2,99,900 and climbs to ₹4,49,900 for the 2TB version, per the Free Press Journal.

The event carried symbolic weight beyond the hardware: it was the first major iPhone launch presided over by John Ternus, who took over as Apple's chief executive on 1 September after Tim Cook ended a 15-year run and moved to the role of executive chairman, as Al Jazeera reported. Ternus joined Apple's product design team in 2001, became vice president of hardware engineering in 2013 and senior vice president in 2021. "The appointment of Ternus is Apple's subtle way of [doubling down] on hardware innovation as a core strategy," Babak Hafezi, professor of international business at American University, told Al Jazeera, which noted Apple shares rose 2.2 percent on the day of the transition.

What the iPhone 18 Pro brings

Both Pro models run on the new A20 Pro chip, built on a 2-nanometre process with a six-core CPU, seven-core GPU and a dual 16-core Neural Engine for on-device AI, according to Digit and The Sunday Guardian. The headline camera change is a 48MP Fusion main sensor with a variable aperture — a first for the iPhone — that adjusts from ƒ/1.48 down to ƒ/4 using a six-blade mechanism, giving photographers manual control over depth of field alongside shutter speed and white balance.

The iPhone 18 Pro keeps a 6.3-inch display while the Pro Max stretches to 6.9 inches, with a smaller, redesigned Dynamic Island that can now show up to three Live Activities at once, Outlook India reported. Battery figures have jumped: Digit cites up to 36 hours of video playback for the Pro and 45 hours for the Pro Max. Storage now tops out at 2TB for the first time on an iPhone — The Sunday Guardian lists the 2TB Pro Max at ₹3,29,900 — and the phones ship with iOS 27, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, in colour options of black, silver, glacier and burgundy.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's marketing chief, said the company had made "advancements in camera, performance, battery and intelligence," per The Sunday Guardian. In the United States, the phones are priced from $1,199 and $1,299, Outlook India noted — and as usual, Indian buyers pay a substantial premium over the dollar price once import duties and taxes are built in.

India is in the first wave of markets: pre-orders open on 12 September and sales begin 18 September.

The ₹3 lakh foldable

The bigger surprise was the iPhone Duo, Apple's long-awaited answer to Samsung's Galaxy Fold line. The device opens like a passport into a 7.6-inch inner OLED display, with a 5.4-inch outer screen; both panels run at 120Hz ProMotion and reach 3,000 nits of peak brightness, and both support the Apple Pencil, according to the Free Press Journal. It measures just 5.2mm thick unfolded — 11.3mm closed — and weighs 254 grams, carrying a dual 48MP rear camera system, a 12MP Center Stage camera on the outer display and an under-display FaceTime camera inside.

India pricing runs ₹2,99,900 for 256GB, ₹3,24,900 for 512GB, ₹3,74,900 for 1TB and ₹4,49,900 for 2TB, in two finishes Apple calls Night Sky and Star White, the Free Press Journal reported. Indian buyers will wait a little longer for it than for the Pro models: pre-orders open on 16 October at 5:30pm IST, with availability from 23 October, per the Free Press Journal and Inc42.

What was missing

Notably absent was a standard iPhone 18. Pre-event reporting by Gadget Bridge said the base iPhone 18, the budget iPhone 18e and a second-generation iPhone Air have been pushed to spring 2027, citing industry-wide memory scarcity and rising component costs — meaning Apple's autumn line-up in India this year is Pro and foldable only, starting at ₹1,64,900.

The event also refreshed the rest of the catalogue. Inc42 reported India prices of ₹56,900 for the Apple Watch Series 12, around ₹1.1 lakh for the Watch Ultra 4 and ₹25,900 for the AirPods 5.

Why it matters for India

Apple has been steadily expanding its India footprint — retail stores, local assembly and a growing premium segment — and the company's decision to put India in the first availability wave for the 18 Pro underlines how central the market has become. But the pricing ladder is now remarkable: a fully specced iPhone Duo at ₹4,49,900 costs more than many small cars. Whether Indian consumers, who have shown a growing appetite for premium devices on financing schemes, will absorb a ₹3 lakh starting price for a foldable is the question Samsung — whose Fold line has had this segment largely to itself in India — will be watching most closely.

Sources: Outlook India, Digit, The Sunday Guardian, Free Press Journal, Inc42, Al Jazeera, Gadget Bridge