Why the iPhone is about to get more expensive

Why the iPhone is about to get more expensive. TechAppleiPhoneThe real reason your phone is getting more expensiveSoaring RAM costs are driving up prices across the tech industry.

What happened

It may take years to settle down. by Rani MollaSep 7, 2026, 12:00 PM UTC Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeTechAppleiPhoneThe real reason your phone is getting more expensiveSoaring RAM costs are driving up prices across the tech industry. When Apple debuts the next generation of iPhones this week, they're likely to come with an unwanted change: a higher price tag. A price hike from the supply-chain powerhouse would be the clearest sign yet that soaring memory costs have become unavoidable – with no end to the memory crunch in sight. Call it "chipflation" […]

It may take years to settle down. by Rani MollaSep 7, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCPart OfRAM price hikes: the latest on the global memory shortagesee all updates When Apple debuts the next generation of iPhones this week, they’re likely to come with an unwanted change: a higher price tag. Call it “chipflation” or “RAMageddon. ” The shortage is reversing a decades-long decline in memory costs that helped make consumer electronics more powerful without making them dramatically more expensive.

An iPhone 17 using AI-powered notification alerts. Or they can focus on more expensive devices with enough profit margin to absorb the added cost. Citing soaring memory costs, Microsoft recently raised Xbox prices by another $100 to $150, leaving some models as much as $300 more expensive than at launch.

The wider picture

Rather than releasing its full lineup at once this fall, Apple is expected to introduce the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max alongside its first foldable iPhone, while holding the standard iPhone 18 and refreshed Air until spring 2027, according to Bloomberg. Tim Cook described memory pricing as a “100-year flood”That leaves Apple’s fall lineup concentrated heavily at the most expensive end of the market — exactly where it has the most room to protect its margins.

Counterpoint’s supply-chain tracking shows Apple preparing roughly 10 percent more iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max units for September through December than it allocated to the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max during the same period last year. The iPhone 18 Pro could start at $1,299, according to The Wall Street Journal’s calculation based on estimates from TechInsights that factor in component costs and attempt to minimize margin reductions. That would be $200 more than the iPhone 17 Pro. In places like China, the world’s largest smartphone market, it almost became common sense to opt for a premium iPhone when lower-cost alternatives were selling for nearly as much.

Counterpoint and IDC are already seeing smartphone companies reduce expected shipments while shifting toward more expensive models. Rani MollaAppleiPhoneTechMore in: RAM price hikes: the latest on the global memory shortageGoogle tells Android app developers to cool it on memory use, or elseAllison JohnsonAug 27Sony Xperia 10 VIII: Same specs, new price.

What has been reported

A price hike from the supply-chain powerhouse would be the clearest sign yet that soaring memory costs have become unavoidable — with no end to the memory crunch in sight. The terms “memory prices” and “memory shortage” appeared in 473 company transcripts last quarter, according to data provided by AlphaSense. The entire industry is seemingly working on the problem. And yet, we’re years away from seeing it fixed. The common wisdom is that AI is at fault: The technology isn’t just contributing to higher energy prices and layoffs; it’s also helping drive up the cost of everything from smartphones to game consoles.

But the shortage was brewing well before ChatGPT took off — and was then amplified by AI’s unending hunger for RAM. The current market is the product of a complicated and very profitable reshuffling of the memory industry within a system that was already failing to keep up. “We need to build more wafer capacity,” Manish Bhatia, president and COO of Micron — one of the three largest memory manufacturers — told The Verge.

What happens next

“[It’s] a very different challenge for the industry than it had been for many years before, where technology alone was able to keep up with the demand. ”Samsung HBM chips on a wafer at the Nano Korea expo, July 8th, 2026. Photo: SeongJoon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesFor years, memory manufacturers could increase production by fitting more chips onto each wafer. But those gains were shrinking and taking longer to achieve. In 2021, even as pandemic-era electronics demand surged, Micron concluded that the problem was more fundamental: Technological advances alone would no longer create enough capacity to keep pace with long-term demand.

Manufacturers would have to process more wafers — and build enormous new facilities to do it. Pandemic-era purchases of computers, tablets, and phones had pulled demand forward; consumer spending weakened, and manufacturers were left with excess inventory. They lost money and slowed their expansion plans.