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Just when Apple’s newest flagships hit the market with higher starting prices, fresh reports suggest the company may have to raise them again next year.
The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max launched $100 higher than their 2025 predecessors. The same $100 bump showed up on the older iPhone 17 and 16 models too. Those increases already reflected the broader supply-chain squeeze, especially the surge in demand for memory chips coming from AI data centers. Now it seems more hikes could be on the way.
Korean media and supply-chain sources say Samsung has been renegotiating DRAM and NAND prices with major phone makers, including Apple. The two companies have reportedly settled on new rates that kick in during the first quarter of 2027.
Under the reported deal, Apple will pay close to $2.00 per gigabit of LPDDR5X RAM and $0.33 per gigabit of NAND. For context, Samsung’s third-quarter 2026 prices were around $1.50 and $0.26. That’s roughly a 33% jump for RAM and 27% for storage.
Those higher memory costs would land straight on the BOM (bill of materials) for future iPhones (and potentially other Apple devices). Memory already makes up a meaningful chunk of the BOM, so sustained increases make it tougher for companies to hold the line on pricing while still protecting margins.
AI demand has tightened supply of mobile DRAM and NAND, since producers like Samsung and SK hynix are prioritizing higher-margin products like high-bandwidth memory for servers.
Apple wasn’t the only one Samsung approached. Oppo and Vivo reportedly pushed back on the higher rates, which leaves open the question of which other suppliers they might turn to for their next flagships.
It’s still unclear whether Apple will pass the full increase on to buyers, but the recent pricing pattern makes another retail hike for the 2027 iPhone lineup a realistic possibility.
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(Source: Semiconductor Insider)
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