Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is preparing to raise prices across its product lineup after CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the company can no longer absorb skyrocketing memory and storage costs.
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” Cook said in a Wall Street Journal interview published Wednesday, adding that the situation has become unsustainable.
“We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, but the situation has become unsustainable,” Cook continued, offering little reassurance to consumers already contending with elevated prices.
Cook declined to specify which devices would carry higher price tags or when the changes would take effect across Apple’s broad product range.
Apple’s next major product launch, the iPhone 18 lineup, which is anticipated to include a foldable model, is expected to arrive in September.
The underlying driver of the crisis is a dramatic reallocation of DRAM and NAND flash supply toward artificial intelligence infrastructure, tightening availability for consumer electronics manufacturers.
Since Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. began announcing massive capital expenditure expansions last year, both memory and storage chip prices have quadrupled.
The three dominant DRAM producers, Micron Technology, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and SK Hynix Inc., have watched their valuations surge sharply as demand from AI data centers has overwhelmed available supply.
Micron currently trades at $1,065.05, up more than 900% from its 52-week low, while storage chipmaker Sandisk Corp. has surged 4,785% from its low of $40.10.
Cook said he has never witnessed a commodity swing of this magnitude across four decades working in electronics supply chains at IBM, Compaq, and Apple.
“This is a 100-year flood,” Cook told the Wall Street Journal, adding, “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”
The remarks underscore how profoundly AI infrastructure spending is reshaping component markets far beyond the semiconductor sector itself.
Apple has historically used its enormous purchasing scale and supply chain discipline to shield consumers from input cost volatility, a strategy that now appears to have reached its limits.
The anticipated price increases could test consumer loyalty at a time when Apple faces growing competition in key international markets, particularly from lower-cost device manufacturers.
