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.
