Apple Price Hike on iPhone, Mac and iPad 'Unavoidable' as AI Drives Memory Chip Costs Up Fourfold

US Apple buyers face the steepest device price hikes in years after chief executive Tim Cook conceded that absorbing surging memory chip costs has become 'unsustainable,' with the memory components that go into every iPhone, iPad, and Mac now costing roughly four times what they did a year ago.

Cook, who hands over the role to John Ternus on 1 September, told the Wall Street Journal on 17 June that 'unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable', signalling that the autumn iPhone 18 launch and forthcoming Mac and iPad refreshes are likely to ship with sharply higher tags. He framed the squeeze as a hundred-year flood driven by artificial intelligence (AI) data centres hoovering up the world's supply of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and storage chips.

A Handover Dressed as a Warning

The timing matters. Apple confirmed on 20 April that Cook would step down after nearly 15 years and become executive chairman, with Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus taking over on 1 September. Issuing the price-rise warning now lets Cook absorb the consumer reaction before Ternus formally takes the helm, just two weeks ahead of Apple's traditional iPhone keynote in mid-September.

It also positions Apple alongside rivals that have already moved. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, and ASUS have raised PC prices by between 15% and 30% over the past two quarters, according to industry tracker IDC and TrendForce data. Cook declined to specify which Apple products will rise, by how much, or when.

The Quiet Mac Changes Already in Flight

Apple has not waited for an announcement to begin acting. The company has eliminated several higher-memory configurations from its online store, removing the 32 gigabyte (GB) and 64GB Mac mini options, capping the M4 Pro Mac mini at 48GB, and limiting the M3 Ultra Mac Studio to 96GB. The 256GB random-access memory (RAM) M3 Ultra variant and the 512GB Mac Studio top-tier have also been dropped from sale.

The entry-level Mac mini has already absorbed a direct rise. Its 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) option was retired earlier this year, lifting the starting price from $599 (£447) to $799 (£596). Cook said Apple underestimated demand from buyers running local AI tools on Macs.

What a $270 Jump Means for Households

Research firm TechInsights told the Wall Street Journal that the iPhone 18 Pro alone would need to rise by roughly $270 (£203) to preserve Apple's existing margin on a device currently starting at $1,099 (£825). Applied across a typical upgrade cycle covering an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac, the cumulative hit could exceed $540 (£406), reshaping Christmas budgeting decisions for millions of US buyers already squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis.

US shoppers planning to switch brands to dodge the hike may find the relief limited. Samsung has more than doubled its DDR5 contract memory price to roughly $19.50 (£15) per unit, while Micron has confirmed it will exit the Crucial consumer memory business in 2026 to prioritise AI server customers.

'RAMageddon' and the Road to 2027

The industry has nicknamed the crisis 'RAMageddon'. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, which supply nearly all the world's memory chips, are redirecting wafer capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI accelerators, where margins are far higher. New memory plants are under construction but are not expected to open until late 2027, keeping consumer device prices high through 2026 and into next year.

Cook said Apple will deploy its cash reserves to help expand global memory supply, but ruled out building its own chip factories. 'We can't do everything,' he told the Journal.