Apple to Raise Prices, Citing 'Unsustainable' Situation
Last month Apple, who last year announced a $600 billion U.S. investment over four years, announced plans to raise prices on its products to offset costs, including memory and storage chip price increases, according to Chief Executive Tim Cook.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cook explained that the memory and storage chip supply crunch has been fueled by explosive demand from artificial intelligence companies around the world.
Major AI companies (including AI companies also owned by Apple) are purchasing vast quantities of these chips for data centers and advanced computing systems.
Apple will be raising prices on products due to the skyrocketing costs of memory and storage, says Tim Cook.
It’s still unclear what products will be getting more expensive, or when the hikes will take place. pic.twitter.com/wkZrbNOFfo
— AppleTrack (@appltrack) June 17, 2026
That surge in demand has pushed prices sharply higher over the past year.
Apple relies heavily on these components for iPhones, Macs, iPads, and other devices.
Cook did not disclose the timing, nor did he reveal which products will see higher prices first.
Some estimates suggest future high-end iPhone models could face significant price increases if current trends continue.
Cook told the Wall Street Journal, “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.”
“This is a hundred-year flood,” he continued. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”
The shortage is expected to persist as AI-related demand continues to expand worldwide.
Memory manufacturers are increasing production capacity, but the new supply may take years to reach the market.
The WSJ article explained:
Memory, also called DRAM, and storage, also called NAND, are like elements of a mid-20th-century office: The memory is a desk that holds all the papers a worker needs to perform a task, while storage is the filing cabinet that holds everything else. Smartphones use DRAM memory to run apps currently in use; they use NAND storage to file away photos and videos, for example.
Cook focused on the DRAM market in particular, saying, “There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases. We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line.”
There are three dominant companies in the DRAM memory market, including Samsung, SK Hynix in South Korea, and Micron in the U.S. The NAND manufacturers include those three as well as Kioxia and Sandisk.
While these companies are building more manufacturing facilities, Morgan Stanley projected that the suppliers will focus on the specialized AI memory, leaving consumer tech products in short supply.
Apple spends tens of billions of dollars a year on memory and storage. Compounding this issue is Apple’s additional need for DRAM to support its updated AI features, including the recently announced “more capable” Siri.
Apple’s planned price increases underscore how the AI boom is reshaping global semiconductor markets and affecting consumers beyond the data-center debates.
Apple’s American-made advanced servers are now shipping from our new Houston facility to Apple data centers!
These servers will help power Private Cloud Compute and Apple Intelligence, as part of our $600 billion US commitment. pic.twitter.com/maOd3lCGfK
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) October 23, 2025
On the heels of Apple announcing product price increases based on memory and storage chip supply demand, Fox Business reported that Apple was seeking to purchase memory chips from a Pentagon blacklisted Chinese company.
CNBC reported that President Trump explained that Intel, a semiconductor manufacturer, agreed to work with Apple in order to build chips here in the U.S.
More recently, Wednesday (15), Yahoo Finance reported that Apple announced a $30 billion agreement with Broadcom, a major American chip manufacturer. The article suggested that this new deal might be the close of an era for the company’s bold embrace of Chinese manufacturing.
Apple seeks to buy memory chips from blacklisted Chinese company https://t.co/OIIjezbc3z
— Financial Times (@FT) June 27, 2026
In a July (8) Press Release, Apple stated that they have “. . been working with the administration and businesses across the U.S. to help create an end-to-end silicon supply chain in America, and today’s announcement advances those efforts.”
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