Earlier today, Tim Cook sat for an interview with The Wall Street Journal and made a bunch of ominous predictions. Among them, the outgoing Apple CEO highlighted that the rising price of memory and storage modules has finally forced Apple to raise the prices of its devices. Apple has already increased the base price of its Macs. In the coming months, the same would reflect on other Mac models as well as the iPad. The biggest hit, however, will be felt on the price of iPhones.
Just how bad is the situation?
In the wake of the interview, the Journal conducted a market analysis, taking into account the current price of core components such as the processor, memory, battery, display, and camera modules. The outlet reports that the price of the base model could go up by as much as $200, and that’s just the baseline. As expected, the biggest factor behind the surging component prices is the DRAM.
According to the outlet, the asking price of a 12GB DRAM module and 256GB flash storage is going to go up by a factor of 4 by the time Apple launches its next-gen iPhones in the fall season. Mike Howard, director of memory markets at TechInsights highlights that Apple spent $39 on the iPhone 17 Pro’s 12GB DRAM kit, but buying the same for the iPhone 18 will cost it $145. Likewise, the price of a 256GB storage module has climbed from $13 to $51.
What comes next?
Now, Cook won’t say just how far the asking price of the iPhone 18 Pro is going to reach. The safest estimate by the Wall Street Journal puts the sticker price at $1,299. However, if one takes into account the rumored camera hardware upgrade, which is going to be even more expensive, the final price could climb all the way up to $1,399. The bigger Max model, naturally, will cost even more.
Apple won’t be the only smart phone maker out there feeling the sting. On the Android side, the prices of flagship phones have already climbed beyond the $1,500 to $1,600 ballpark, and in the coming months they are going to rise even further. It seems Apple isn’t too keen about taking matters into its own hands and solve the crisis.
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable,” the outgoing Apple chief told the outlet.