Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the company will raise prices on its products because memory and storage chip costs have jumped sharply. “Unfortunately, price increases are inevitable,” he said. “We are doing our best to deal with the enormous costs passed on to us, and we tried to protect our customers from them. But we can no longer control the situation.” Cook gave no details on timing, size of the increases, or which products will be affected.
Analysts expect any increases to come first on Mac and iPad products, while Apple is likely to unveil the iPhone 18 lineup in September, possibly including a new foldable model. TechInsights estimated that passing the higher costs on while preserving margins could add about $270 to the next iPhone Pro.
The price spike is being driven by intense demand for memory and storage chips used in AI applications, which has pushed prices up as much as fourfold. Cook said demand from AI data center servers is absorbing most available supply, leaving even a company as large as Apple struggling to secure enough chips. “There is less supply at a time when consumers want devices, and the people making memory are passing on big cost increases,” he said. “We definitely need memory chip prices and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That is the bottom line.”
The memory chip market is dominated by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, while major storage chip makers include Kioxia and SanDisk. Over the past 12 months, shares and profits at those companies have soared, with Micron and SK Hynix stock up more than 800% and Kioxia and SanDisk up more than 4,600%.
Cook also said Apple will not use its cash reserves and expertise to make the chips itself. “We cannot do everything. We know what we are good at.” In September, Cook is set to step down as CEO and be replaced by John Ternus, now Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.
