iPhone 18 Pro to maintain price despite rising RAM costs
This is a very important step towards the RAM prices potentially going down.
Yesterday, information surfaced from Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that the iPhone 18 Pro should keep the same $1,099 price as the iPhone 17 Pro, despite the ever-increasing memory cost. While $1,099 is still high for a phone in 2026, the sometimes double or even triple prices of RAM and memory chips compared to even just 6 months ago eats into the budget of the phone, so it is a much more compelling deal. This is also a great sign, as even Samsung recently could not buy RAM from their own RAM division because of the limited supply and high costs. If Apple is able to keep the price the same, this will be a great move for the industry.
Kuo suspects that Apple is able to do this because of the grip and leverage they have on the market. The idea that Apple has, supposedly, is that they will buy up what they need now for their upcoming products and absorb the costs. They will then make back what they lost later through services. Apple has already been moving towards a subscription-based revenue system for quite some time now, and so it is interesting the reliance they have to have on it now given the current situation.
Plus, with the release of Apple Creator Studio this week, it is clearer than ever that Apple wants to expand this portfolio to grow this revenue source. The release of Apple Creator Studio is almost perfect, because it locks in more revenue now, as people who want to upgrade will buy now, giving Apple some short term revenue to make back some of what they will lose on iPhones, potentially. Then, more long term revenue is created, as people keep paying for their subscriptions. This is speculation, however, and the releases may be coincidental.
The iPhone 18 Pro is still expected to start with 256GB of storage, the same as last generation. This increased the price last year when the iPhone 17 Pro went up to 256GB from 128GB in the iPhone 16 Pro. This also may have helped with the current memory chip issues because the increase in price may have increased profit margins that they can now fall into since they are absorbing more costs.
This whole situation is interesting, especially due to Apple's current issues with AI and the fact that the RAM issues stem from AI servers and companies buying up all of the RAM. It is getting messy for Apple, but they may be finding a way out.
The iPhone 18 Pro maintaining a steady price allows for more customers and a temporary fix for the increasing RAM prices from AI. We will have to wait and see what Apple does soon.
