iPhone 18 Pro Price Could Rise $100 on Memory Chip Costs

The iPhone 18 Pro could cost Apple significantly more to build this year, and industry analysts say that expense may land on buyers as a higher retail price. New component estimates point to memory chips as the main driver behind the jump, months ahead of the phone's expected fall launch.

Component costs are climbing fast
Analysts estimate the bill of materials for a 256GB iPhone 18 Pro will run about 38% higher than the equivalent iPhone 17 Pro, largely because of soaring memory prices across the industry.

Memory is the biggest factor
Research firm TechInsights estimates the 12GB DRAM package inside an iPhone 18 Pro could cost Apple around $145 per unit, compared with about $39 for the equivalent memory in the iPhone 17 Pro, a 272% jump for the same capacity.

A possible $100 price increase
Reports suggest Apple could raise iPhone 18 pricing by $100 or more if it passes the added cost on to buyers, which would put a starting price for the iPhone 18 Pro near $1,199. Apple has not confirmed final pricing for the lineup, and the company could still hold prices steady closer to launch depending on how memory costs move over the next few months.

Apple has seen this playbook before
Reports note Apple has been watching how Samsung and Google handled the same memory price pressure, with both companies raising their latest flagship phone prices by about $100 this year.

Apple may absorb some of the hit
Analysts at TrendForce expect Apple to cover part of the added cost out of its own margin rather than pass all of it to buyers, a strategy Apple has used recently on MacBook pricing to keep sticker prices competitive. That approach would soften any increase on the iPhone 18 Pro without eliminating it entirely.

A market-wide memory squeeze
Counterpoint's memory pricing tracker shows DRAM average selling prices up around 400% and NAND prices up more than 300% over the past year, pressure that's hitting phone makers industry-wide, not just Apple. Samsung and Google have already passed some of that cost on to buyers with this year's flagships, and analysts expect other Android makers to follow suit before the year is out.

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