How Samsung's rising memory prices could drive up the cost of iPhones

Samsung is the world's biggest memory chip maker, and after repeated price hikes of memory chips over the past couple of years, the company has generated massive revenues and record-breaking profits. Now, it appears Samsung may have made manufacturing iPhones and other Apple products even costlier.

A report claims that Samsung has renegotiated DRAM and NAND flash chip prices with Apple, and the iPhone maker has reportedly agreed to pay higher prices for those components. If this is true, the manufacturing cost for iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Macs, and other Apple devices will increase, potentially forcing Apple to raise device prices once again.

According to reports, Apple has agreed to pay $2.00 per gigabit of LPDDR5X RAM and $0.33 per gigabit of NAND flash storage starting in Q1 2027. In Q3 2026, LPDDR5X RAM was priced at $1.50 per gigabit, while NAND flash stood at $0.26 per gigabit. This marks a 33% increase for RAM and a 27% increase for storage chips in just a few months.

The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max launched recently with a $100 price increase in the US compared to their predecessors, with even steeper hikes in other markets. With Samsung raising memory chip prices further, Apple devices could become even more expensive down the road.

Because Apple is one of the biggest memory chip buyers in the smartphone and personal computing space, it holds more leverage than most brands. If even Apple was forced to agree to Samsung's price hikes, competitors, including Samsung's own smartphone division, will likely face similar increases. As a result, phones, laptops, and other consumer electronics across the industry could become more expensive next year.

Ultimately, this development points to significantly higher revenues and profits for Samsung's memory chip division in 2027.