If you were hoping Apple’s recent price increases were a one-off, there’s another reason to watch what happens in 2027. Two of the most important components inside your iPhone, iPad, and Mac are about to cost Apple a lot more.
A report from DigiTimes, citing Chinese publication Jiemian News, claims Apple has reached an agreement with Samsung for its memory supply beginning in early 2027. Under the reported terms, Apple would pay close to $2 per gigabit for DRAM and $0.33 per gigabit for NAND flash. Put more simply, the memory that gives your devices their RAM and storage could cost Apple around 30% to 40% more than it did in the third quarter of this year.
The timing isn’t great for Apple buyers
A jump in component costs doesn’t automatically mean your next iPhone will cost 40% more. Memory is only one part of the total cost of building a device, and Apple could choose to absorb some of the increase. The concern is that Apple has already shown that it is willing to pass at least some of the effects of the memory shortage on to customers.
Prices went up across Macs and iPads earlier this year, with increases also reaching the Apple TV, HomePod lineup, and Vision Pro. Then came the iPhone 18 series, where the iPhone 18 Pro‘s US starting price climbed by $100 compared with the previous generation. Some older iPhones also became more expensive. Whether another round follows in 2027 is still unknown. Apple could have already accounted for future memory costs when setting its latest prices.
AI data centers are squeezing everyone else
The bigger problem is where all this demand is coming from. The rapid expansion of AI infrastructure has companies building huge data centers that require enormous amounts of memory. That has put pressure on the supply available for everything else, including phones and computers.
Apple has already acknowledged how unusual the situation has become. Former CEO Tim Cook previously compared the disruption in the memory market to a “100-year flood” while discussing the company’s price increases. The reported Samsung deal now suggests this isn’t a short-term problem. Apple may be securing the memory it needs for next year’s products, but securing it cheaply appears to be another matter entirely.
