Apple's outgoing CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that price increases across the company's product lineup are now inevitable, citing an AI-driven shortage of memory and storage chips that has pushed component costs to unsustainable levels.The report indicates that Apple may implement price hikes in the near future, particularly for Macs and iPads. Just last month, between product launch events, the company increased the starting price of the Mac Mini.
What Cook Said
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cook said Apple had been absorbing rising supplier costs and attempting to shield customers from price increases for as long as possible but that the situation had become untenable. "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," he said. Cook did not specify which products would be affected, when increases would take effect, or by how much prices would rise.
AI's Appetite for Memory
The underlying driver is explosive demand for DRAM and NAND flash storage chips from AI data centres. Major cloud providers including Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon have dramatically expanded their capital spending to build AI infrastructure, creating intense competition for the same memory components that go into consumer devices. Analysts at TechInsights estimate that chip cost increases alone could add approximately $35 per iPhone unit, pushing total chip costs per handset to around $85, with the burden ultimately falling on the consumer.
Memory chip prices have roughly quadrupled since 2025, according to industry estimates. The crunch is expected to worsen before it eases, with Cook signalling Apple is willing to deploy capital to support efforts to expand memory manufacturing capacity, though he stopped short of naming specific partners or timelines.
Broader Industry Impact
Apple is not alone. Tesla, alongside more than a dozen major technology companies, has flagged DRAM constraints as a production concern in 2026. Elon Musk has also warned publicly that the memory shortage will worsen. The cumulative revenue impact of the earlier semiconductor shortage between 2020 and 2022 exceeded $500 billion globally, analysts warn the AI-driven memory crunch could reproduce similar or greater disruption across smartphones, laptops, data centres, consumer electronics, and the automotive sector.
What It Means for Indian Buyers
In India, iPhones and MacBooks already cost considerably more than in the United States because of import duties and GST. Any rise in Apple’s global base prices will be passed straight on to Indian retail prices, intensifying the effect on consumers in a market where Apple has been rapidly growing its retail footprint and manufacturing operations. While Apple does produce part of its iPhone range in India via Foxconn and Tata Electronics, sourcing memory chips continues to be a global supply chain issue, irrespective of where the devices are ultimately assembled.
Cook, who announced earlier this year that he would hand over the CEO role to hardware chief John Ternus on September 1, made the comments as Apple prepares to launch its iPhone 18 lineup, including the foldable iPhone Ultra, expected to start at $1,999, later this year.