Tim Cook admits price hikes coming to Apple products due to skyrocketing memory chip costs

In an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, warns that "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable" due to skyrocketing memory chip costs.

Both solid state storage and RAM prices have risen dramatically during the past year, primarily driven by huge demand from AI data centers. Unlike conventional apps, such as Final Cut Pro, that can run with just 8 GB of RAM, AI large language models (LLM) need 48 GB or more to load and run well on consumer computers (such as this handheld tablet PC), and even more in data centers for commercial use.

As a result, Micron has discontinued production of consumer memory products to focus on supplying commercial customers, while products from PlayStation 5 consoles to Samsung LPDDR5X DRAM continue to see 100% price increases or greater. A graph of price changes in DRAM and NAND pricing since 2023 by TechInsights in the article estimates both will have increased by over 300% by the third quarter of 2026.

Given that Apple's top-of-the-line 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max is currently priced at $1,999, one can imagine the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro Max smartphone or iPhone Ultra folding phone topping the $2k mark. Cook has not revealed specifics or timings for the planned price increases, nor what effect Apple's own Siri AI has on its product pricing.

Parents wanting to equip their children before school starts this fall might want to buy iPhones and MacBooks (like the $599 MacBook Neo on Amazon) early as demand for memory is expected to outstrip supply for the next several years. Products that use few memory chips or none at all, like the AirPods 4 with ANC (on sale at Amazon), will likely not be impacted.