It has been days since Apple launched the iPhone 18 Pro Max, and while Indian buyers were busy having a quiet meltdown over the price tag vi a vis other countries like US, UK, UAE and more, someone on Twitter pointed out something far more interesting: the iPhone itself is not identical everywhere. So, if you do jet across to some other country with the intention of buying an iPhone 18 Pro Max, here is everything you need to know. Apple, it seems, builds iPhones for the market it is selling to, and that shows up in the one place you would least expect, the SIM slot. So, what do you get here? Well iPhone 18 Pro Max comes with a nano-SIM slot alongside dual eSIM support. US ships an eSIM-only version.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max price tag shifts just as much as the SIM setup. In China, the 256GB Pro Max opens at CNY 10,999, roughly Rs 1.56 lakh.
This one always stings: the US version starts at just $1,299, around Rs 1.24 lakh, the cheapest of the lot. Canada isn't far behind at C1,899, close to Rs 1.29 lakh.
Japan's JPY 239,800 converts to about Rs 1.46 lakh. Mexico comes in the priciest among these five at $31,999 MXN, nearing Rs 1.72 lakh.
And then there's India, where the same 256GB base iPhone 18 Pro Max price is listed at a flat Rs 1,79,900, the steepest number on this entire list.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max ships in four distinct configurations depending on where you buy it.
The US gets an eSIM-only iPhone 18 Pro Max version with mmWave support, while Canada, Japan, and Mexico also go eSIM-only, just without the mmWave.
Most of the rest of the world gets the more familiar SIM-plus-eSIM combination, and China, true to form, gets a dual-SIM setup of its own.
India's nano-SIM-with-dual-eSIM arrangement fits into this global patchwork rather than standing apart from it.