Apple is about to increase device prices

“Unfortunately, price increases are inevitable,” Tim Cook told WSJ. “We have tried our best to reduce price increases and protect customers, but things are becoming unsustainable.”

According to him, the cost of memory and DRAM is a “concern” for the company in the context of production lines prioritizing the types of high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers. “Supply is tight, while consumers need devices, and memory manufacturers sharply increase prices,” he continued. “Certainly memory prices and supply need to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the key.”

Cook said that in addition to familiar partners from the US and Korea, Apple has considered joining hands with a Chinese memory manufacturing business. He assessed that this country has top quality products, but to cooperate, American companies like Apple need a license according to national security regulations.

“Everything needs to be considered. I think we should look at all sources of supply,” Cook shared.

In the interview, he said Apple is willing to use its cash reserves to increase memory supply, but did not disclose details. According to him, the company is “ready to use its balance sheet to contribute to solving the problem” because it is now “clear that more storage capacity is needed.”

However, Tim Cook, expected to transfer the position of Apple CEO to John Ternus in September, did not reveal the time, price increase or which products may be affected. He also denied that Apple was planning to use its cash and semiconductor expertise to build its own memory and storage device factory.

This is not the first time Tim Cook mentioned the problem of memory chip shortage. In the financial report dated April 30, he admitted that the company is having to overcome significantly higher memory costs in the second quarter of 2026, severely affecting its business operations in the near future.

Theo Tom’s Hardwarethe AI ​​wave puts the memory chip sector for the consumer market in crisis. The shortage is so severe that the DRAM market is adopting an hourly price adjustment model.

The cause of the prolonged crisis is the huge demand from AI data centers. Modern systems require large amounts of high bandwidth memory (HBM) to continuously feed data to the GPU. HBM has very high profit margins, so manufacturers are devoting production, investment and technical resources to this segment. This means they are reducing their focus on conventional DRAM memory, leading to a shortage in supply for computers, servers, and mobile devices.

In the first quarter 2026 financial report dated April 30, Mr. Kim Jaejune, leader of Samsung’s memory chip segment, said that the memory crisis will not end in 2027. The gap between supply and demand next year may even widen even more than in 2026. Similarly, Mr. Chey Tae Won, President of SK Hynix, said that the pressure on memory demand related to AI will last until 2030.

According to Counterpoint’s report, the first quarter of 2026 witnessed a strong price increase, with DRAM prices increasing by 80%-90% compared to the previous quarter. The impact on price is expected to not just stop at PCs or smartphones. Devices such as broadband routers or set-top boxes, which are often subsidized by carriers or sold with service packages, are under particular pressure, because this is a product group with thin profit margins, closely dependent on component prices. If memory continues to increase sharply, carriers may be forced to increase terminal prices, charge additional installation fees, or delay hardware upgrades. This could affect the speed of deployment of broadband infrastructure and digital television services in many markets.

While consumer electronics companies enter a “war for survival”, expert Danny Williams from PCSpecialist said that if memory prices do not decrease, shopping demand may go down this year. “Consumers have to decide whether to pay a higher price for the performance they need, or accept a weaker device. Another possibility is that they will keep the old device longer,” he said.