Samsung will make iPhones more expensive and Apple can't do anything about it

The world has now moved on from inflation and shrinkflation to “chipflation.” The word truly represents what's going on in the semiconductor market today. Memory chip prices are through the roof and with manufacturing capacity constrained, advanced chipmaking has become a lot more expensive.

This will inevitably trickle down to consumer devices and no one will be spared, not even Apple, which may have to deal with Samsung dictating a price increase for its beloved iPhones.

Samsung has long been one of the largest suppliers of LPDDR mobile RAM for iPhones. Apple also sources them from SK Hynix.

Reports out of South Korea claim that Samsung has increased the price of LPDDR chips that it supplies to Apple in Q1 2025 by as much as 80% compared to the previous quarter. Samsung's price hike is reportedly still lower than SK Hynix which is believed to have gone for a 100% increase.

Apple has always been able to use its massive scale to negotiate sweetheart deals for LPDDR chips. That can't save it anymore, as record high prices are sparing no one. Even the mobile division of Samsung Electronics, the company that itself makes memory chips, is not immune to the problem.

Apple may have to pay even more for these memory chips in the second half of this year when it launches the iPhone 18 and possibly its first foldable iPhone. The company has typically signed long-term agreements with memory chip suppliers to lock in prices.

Given the price volatility in the market, suppliers aren't offering long-term contracts, and it's believed that both Samsung and SK Hynix have only signed agreements covering the first half of 2026. Apple doesn't have much room to negotiate here and it remains at the mercy of market forces for the foreseeable future.