Interesting marketing strategy from apple. With this strategy, apple may get more buyers/adopters than samsung did for the foldable phones. Interested parties balked at Samsung z-fold prices ($2000+).
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/28/tech/apple-lease-products-iphone-mac
I totally don’t get the point, unless they’re saying between the lines that regular purchase prices are going to go up the roof beyond any common sense even for die hard apple fans.
How does that increase profits?
The standard iPhone 17 with 512GB costs $1k. Users typically upgrade after a tad under two years, so $500 on average (less however much the old phone can be sold for).
But now you can lease the standard iPhone $23 a month (plus, optional, annually $150 for Applecare), switch to the next generation at no additional cost after 12 months or 24. So people now can spend $276 annually instead for the same benefit.
And that doesn’t even consider Klarna’s cut of the monthlies. I don’t see how that’s at least as profitable as an outright sell.
But it looks like the phone companies get their business model destroyed. Why sign a 2-year contract with “free” phone when a “naked” subscription plus a leased phone costs far less.
Well, i don’t have their business plan, but this is a way to keep existing users and have them upgrade often. Later / recent phones have considerable resale value in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries
Apple will sell to klarna, for example, and let them manage inventory, returns and recycling/selling may be?
Apple can get in bed with starlink orr upcoming amazon service and give the mobile operators a big run …
Evidently so.
Further, Klarna doesn’t do hardware. Klarna’s a payment provider and digital bank (mostly active in Europe so far but that’s probably about to change mucho).