Exchange bonanza! To sell Pixel Fold, Google paying enormous amounts for iPhone 13, iPhone 14

Google is making it more lucrative for iPhone 13, iPhone 14 users to switch over to Pixel Fold with massive trade-in values.

Google is offering $900 for the iPhone 14 Pro, 128GB variant as a trade-in for Pixel Fold. That is just $99 less than its retail price. (Google )

About a week ago, Google unveiled its ambitious Pixel Fold, a folding smartphone, at the Google I/O 2023's keynote session. The first foldable by Google features a 7.6-inch main OLED display, a 48MP primary camera, and the Tensor G2 processor. But despite such impressive specifications, it appears Google is concerned about the smartphone's reception, especially considering the market share that is dominated by Apple's iPhones. And that's why Google has come up with a unique solution to the problem — massive exchange offers for iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 when buying the Pixel Fold.

The Pixel Fold is not available in India but we took a look at the Google Store USA to understand just how much discount was it offering for different flagships. The smartphone starts at the price of 1799 for the 256GB variant. It turns out that the 128GB iPhone 14 Pro, which costs $999 will fetch you a trade-in value of $900. The iPhone 13 Pro, on the other hand, will get you an exchange offer of $850. For comparison, Apple has listed the trade-in value of the iPhone 13 Pro at $530.

And things get even more interesting when you consider that the 128GB Pixel 7 Pro, the company's flagship device from the previous year only has an exchange value of $380. The smartphone was launched at the price of $899 in the USA.

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Google tries to swoon Apple users

The disproportionate trade-in value has not even been extended to Apple's rival Samsung. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 gets a $900 while it starts at $1800, similar to Pixel Fold. Even Galaxy S22 Ultra fetches $750 (retail price - $1150), while the Galaxy S23 series does not feature in the trade-in list.

This shows a clear indication by Google in attracting Apple users. It could be that the Pixel maker is struggling to make the $1799 price tag on the foldable difficult to appear appealing. Perhaps this is why the company is also offering a Pixel Watch to anyone that pre-orders the device.

However, it remains to be seen whether this will be enough to give a boost to the Pixel Fold sales volume. With the smartphone expected to start shipping by the end of May, we should get to see a clearer picture soon.