Features / 23 September 2026 / Michael Taylor

The cars you can buy for the price of a new iPhone in South Africa

You can buy a used car in South Africa for less than the price of the latest iPhone, assuming you purchase the latter on a contract.

An analysis by MyBroadband found that local consumers will pay R79,920 over the course of three years to afford the new Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max through Vodacom, excluding the cost of the included cellular plan.

The highest-spec iPhone 18 Pro Max will cost R79,920 on a 36-month contract, while the lower-end iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will cost between R34,200 and R36,000.

Apple recently launched its new phones in South Africa at an event on Wednesday, 9 September 2026. Vodacom listed pre-order contract prices for the smartphones on its website.

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at R1,299 per month over 36 months, which climb up to R2,449 per month for the 2TB model.

Similarly, prices for the 18 Pro Max start at R1,349 per month and reach up to R2,499 per month over three years.

MyBroadband separated the cellular fees from the total contract price to determine what consumers would be paying for the hardware over the full term.

For the iPhone 18 Pro Max 2TB model, the contract cost minus cellular fees is R2,220 per month. Multiplied by 36, that gives us value of R79,920 for the top-spec iPhone in South Africa.

What you can buy for the price of an iPhone

To put that substantial sum in perspective, we had a look to see what kind of cars one can purchase for a similar amount in South Africa.

It’s impossible to buy a new car for R80,000, mind you, as the cheapest passenger vehicle on the market right now is the R178,799 Renault Kwid.

However, while the days of buying a new BMW for this kind of money are long gone, there are some decent options on the second-hand market that can be had for iPhone money.

TopAuto looked at WeBuyCars to get a sense of what is available, filtering the results to only show cars with an A rating and either a Ready or Certified condition rating.

An A rating means the vehicle is in good working order and is eligible to be financed. They have a lower risk profile and tend to be newer, lower kilometre, and better maintained than other cars listed on the platform.

Similarly, a Ready sticker means the vehicle has no roadworthy-relevant faults and will pass a roadworthiness inspection.

Even better is a Certified sticker, which means the car has passed or will pass a roadworthiness inspection and has a complete and up-to-date service history.

We also filtered the results for vehicles listed for between R75,000 and R100,000, putting them in the same ballpark as Apple’s latest product. This is what we found: