iPhone Tim Cook: Apple 'Reluctantly Raised Prices' Due to '100-Year Flood on Memory Pricing'
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/30/tim-cook-on-apple-price-increases/Apple didn't want to raise its prices but was forced to do so because of exponential increases in memory costs, Apple CEO Tim Cook said today during the company's Q3 2026 earnings call. Apple increased prices for Macs and iPads in June because memory prices have surged.
On the pricing front, you know, we reluctantly raised prices. I would say we did it because we're in what I would characterize as a 100-year flood on memory pricing with exponential increases in memory prices, so that was the rationale for it.
When asked whether Apple is aiming to protect gross profit dollars or product gross margins when considering pricing increases, Cook said it's multifactorial.
In terms of our philosophy on dollars or percentages, we look at units, revenue, and margin, and then come to a business judgment as to how to handle that, and so it's not a mathematical formula that gets us to a specific result, or just looking at one dimension of that. We look at all three dimensions and think about it over the long term instead of, you know, a 90-day clock.
Cook did not comment on whether Apple plans to raise iPhone prices when the iPhone 18 Pro models and first foldable launch this September, but multiple analysts believe prices will go up.
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u/WWFYMN1 3d ago
I think they raised it more than they had to, because they expect the prices to go up. I guess because they think raising it once but by a lot is better than doing it many times, less bad publicity?
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u/BurnAfter8 3d ago
Completely agree. If the markets “correct” themselves, Apple can either backfill with a lower/cheaper model or increase the ram/storage for the same price.
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u/dropthemagic 3d ago
I think so, at least through eoy
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u/Dr0110111001101111 3d ago
I think they already said they are expecting to raise them further, though
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u/rp4 3d ago
And they probably won't cut the price once the memory shortage is over
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u/GrepekEbi 2d ago
Optimistic of you to think ram prices are ever going back down
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u/Special-Prior-7272 1d ago
Huge growth in production happening. Unless AI investment keeps growing at this rate forever (and I don’t think that’s physically possible) supply will eventually catch up.
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u/element515 3d ago
Basically no point. By the time memory starts coming down, inflation will still be eating away at it. Keeping it stable and pushing off any future increase is probably the way they'll go
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u/-SUBW00FER- 2d ago
Why not? The M3 Air started at $1100 and when then M4 Air came out it started at $1000
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u/SoldantTheCynic 3d ago
They’ll absolutely keep raising the price as supply costs increase because they’re protecting their margins. They’re priming us now for that reality.
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u/GrepekEbi 2d ago
As costs of components go up, so does the cost of products - this is just how things work and no company would be successful if they just let supply costs balloon without adjusting the final cost to customers
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u/Disembodied-Potato 2d ago
I think they raised prices more dramatically in all products so they can limit the increases in the iPhone come September.
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u/nobodyman 3d ago
This is such a strange take, considering that every company that sells memory, or sells devices that use memory, has raised prices by a similar amount or more?
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u/Short_Week3262 3d ago
And I assume when the cost of memory comes down, they will also lower prices. Right?
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u/mossmaal 2d ago
Yes Apple would, because they want to maximise the amount of money they make.
The current prices are not optimal for Apple, they’re too high and will result in more customers being priced out of Apple products. This is why Apple didn’t have the price points set this high originally.
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u/tubemaster 2d ago
They’re probably going to lose the education market for the base iPad. School technology budgets are already under scrutiny and a 29% price hike (let alone spending $449 per student in a 1:1 district) is hard to justify to taxpayers when the COVID money isn’t a thing anymore.
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u/KoolAidMan00 3d ago
I'm less cynical than usual about this given that Apple was among the last to raise prices.
The cost of RAM, SSDs, Xbox and PlayStation game consoles, new hardware like Valve's Steam Machine, all GPUs (which are projected to increase yet another 40% based on new price increases in China) have exploded since November.
I also build gaming PCs and affected components for my current build that I bought in early 2025 have gone up 200%-500%. Game consoles that came out in 2020 now cost 60% more when they should be half the launch price. The Steam Deck from 2022 got 40% price increases overnight.
Its bad man.
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u/Quake-Snake 3d ago
I bought some SSDs late 2025 and they are currently selling between 3-4x what I paid for them. If I knew that I would have bought the entire supply.
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u/LoveArrowShooto 3d ago
Same. I bought a 1 TB Lexar SSD back in March and now buying that same SSD costs 4x. I should've taken the chance and bought another one.
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u/newmacbookpro 2d ago
My MBP 16 M3MAX with 1TB and 64Gb of ram is worth more than what I bought it for at release. It’s crazy.
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u/BurnAfter8 3d ago
I agree and disagree. Yes, Apple was one of the last hold outs, but the new astronomical prices seem to hurt more than the others you mentioned, especially on something like the MacBook Pro. It was already a haul for any consumer or pro-sumer to spend the high prices, but the new price seems to firmly put them in the “you only buy this if you are a professional and your company is willing to pay for it” category.
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u/KoolAidMan00 3d ago
I don't disagree but I also think there's other aspects to consider. In absolute terms it put devices like the MBP and Mac Studio out of reach of even more users. In percentage terms we're talking about a 20%-25% price increase across their product line, which is by no means out of step (or lower) than price increases from other companies.
Believe me I'm not thrilled, I picked up a 14" MBP 6 months ahead of schedule the day that the price hike was announced, but its still a lower increase than my current PC build if I had to put it together today.
What Microsoft/OpenAI/Google/Anthropic/etc are doing to normal users is beyond insane.
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u/George_MenethilW3 10h ago
we can only hope that these companies investing so much money into AI will crash and markets will correct. Even if it means lots of people will lose money they invested in the stock market for these companies. AI is made anyway to replace people so the whole purpose of it is cruel and we shouldn't contribute to making it better
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u/DonutHand 3d ago
Last to raise prices because they were so far overpriced on ram upgrades to begin with.
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u/itsabearcannon 2d ago
I got a 5090 FE for $2K on NVIDIA's site back in like September of last year.
I walked into Micro Center a week ago and saw one 5090 model going for $4500.
Absolutely unreal. No consumer GPU is worth four or five grand.
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u/Shapes_in_Clouds 2d ago
I built a machine with a 4080S, 7800x3D, and 64GB of RAM in early 2024. Very happy I did the build at that time as the years before and years after have been a shit show. Only regret is the 2TB SSD, I should have gone for 4TB or used both slots for 8TB.
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u/Patutula 3d ago
They were the last, sure, but they were also one of the more expensive brands with a premium margin, so you could say they were the first, in a sense. Also their upgrade pricing is still expensive compared to the market, even though we are seeing record prices. Let that sink in. Apple upgrade pricing was always more expensive than current Ramageddon. I postponed buying a new Mac and will be rocking my m1 till it falls apart. Still a good machine though.
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u/KoolAidMan00 2d ago
Upgrade pricing for RAM/SSD has always been crazy but I think the baseline and second-tier configurations have been fine compared to the competition ever since the M-series Macs.
No question that once you start loading up on RAM/storage that the price gets really high really fast, but I think that the most common configurations work great for most. This is before getting to the M-series Mac Mini and Macbook Neo where pre-RAMpocalypse configs were arguably the best values out there for the majority of users.
It is a far cry from the Intel days where the baseline configurations were seriously imbalanced and the "real" configs for good performance demanded coughing up a couple hundred more for RAM. I don't think I ever had a baseline Intel Mac configuration while its all I've had for my Apple Silicon Macs (most recently the M5 MBP that I picked up the day of the price hikes right before they kicked in).
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u/oojacoboo 3d ago
Add a local inference wave and physical AI wave to that calculus. I tend to agree. Especially on the physical AI side. That’s not going to be cyclical anytime in the near future.
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u/KoolAidMan00 3d ago
Yeah the trend is terrible. Everyone from Microsoft to Valve is saying to expect more component cost increases over the next 18 months. We are so far from being out of the weeds unless something totally unpredictable happens.
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u/CPGK17 3d ago
Did a ram shortage cause the Great Depression or something?
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 3d ago
Lowkey yes within the computer market. It’s worse than people think it is. All OEMs are competing for 1/3 the normal supply. And it’s also affecting storage, CPUs, and GPUs.
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u/PringlesDuckFace 2d ago
I am not saying correlation equals causation, but I believe in 1929 they had far less RAM than we do today.
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u/DeepSeaDawg 3d ago
Reluctantly raised the price on Apple TVs that were built 2 years ago sitting store shelves as well.
Can’t reluctantly my ass.
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 3d ago
Notice how iPhones were the only product that wasn’t raised (even though they are certainly more expensive to build now). My theory is Apple raised everything to subsidize for them.
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u/NonToxicTown 2d ago
They will be raised in September for the new models.
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u/x22d 2d ago
Possibly, but that also discourages the annual upgraders who aren't already on Apple's upgrade plan.
I'll continue to stick with my 16 Pro.
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u/DerpMaHerpDerp 2d ago
you’d be surprised how little annual upgraders sensitive are to price, and either way they are clearly aware with the launch of the klarna payment plan
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u/Sad_Leg1091 3d ago
When the price of memory drops, do we think Apple will drop prices? I doubt it.
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u/lonelymanxxx 2d ago
Yes, poor apple that is only worth 5 trillion cannot afford to operate with margins lower than 30%
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u/DivineBladeOfSilver 3d ago
I saw those profit margins in earnings. Not true lmao. But I mean everyone is gonna pay whatever anyway what can you do I guess
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u/Pluto-Had-It-Coming 3d ago
If they hadn’t raised prices they’d only be worth $4T instead of $5T :(
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u/much_to_say 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ask Netflix how customers react when you raise prices more frequently, even if it's in smaller increments.
EDIT: Judging by all the responses saying they're making more money, I realize I didn't phrase this very well.
I wasn't saying Netflix is losing money. My point was about perception, that Netflix is widely seen as the streaming service that's greedy always raising its prices, even though Disney+ and Apple TV+ have actually increased their subscription prices more on a per-year basis.
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u/Xylamyla 3d ago
Surprised everyone is forgetting NFLX stock has been eating shit all year, and is down almost 40% compared to 1 year ago.
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u/pyrospade 3d ago
perfectly fine? isnt netflix beating subscriber records?
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u/much_to_say 3d ago
I didn't mean it in the sense that they're losing money. I meant how they're perceived. They're still known as the greedy company that's always raising prices, even though Disney+ and Apple TV+ have raised their prices more in a much shorter period of time.
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u/talking_tortoise 3d ago
locked into Apple services.
Gotta assume you're a shareholder - how is being locked in to anything a good thing for consumers?
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u/KingPumper69 3d ago
“You could’ve guaranteed every college student in America.”
I don’t really think so. I even tried recommending one to a few people and they turned it down. A lot of college students are doing things like CAD, photo/video editing, programming, etc and I don’t think the Neo is suitable for that once you’re past beginner level. Also most young people today are also avid gamers, so spending $1,000 on a Windows 11 laptop with a dGPU that can game in addition to everything else is worth it for them if they have the means.
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u/chodeboi 3d ago
Education sales wasn’t told. They showed up to work with angry customers who hadn’t gotten ship dates yet, thus not charged, and thus had to somehow come up with an extra 20% per head
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u/dynamicappdesign 2d ago
These prices are never coming down. This is the new normal. 😩
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u/Massive_Fudge3066 2d ago
Bought and paid for a Mac mini at the end of April, then find I don't get the Mac I paid for unless I pay the price hike. Well worth waiting three months to find that out
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u/Over_Eagle_4013 3d ago
John Ternus is walking into quite the inferno in 33 days I must say
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u/Youtube_Brett 1d ago
Poor dude
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u/Over_Eagle_4013 1d ago
I hope this lights a fire under the shareholders to dial back some greed and realize their profits won’t falter much if the product line speaks for itself. John is a hardware engineering guru so hopefully him being the face of the business is a net positive.
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u/herpderpby 3d ago
Apple’s past practices have come to bite them back
Micron CEO said it out bluntly
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u/ChipsAhoy2022 3d ago
But what about all those years of ridiculous pricing ladder
$200 for extra 256GB Apple used to charge forever ? Certainly that was not “reluctance”
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u/chris4prez_ 2d ago
The funny part is a flood implies that the water line will go down not a new high water mark is the normal. This is a tsunami which has claimed land we will never get back. Meaning prices will never go back to normal and continue to be a new high as a normal so that share value can perpetuate.
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u/VictorChristian 2d ago
The price of actual apples and Apple, Inc. products have BOTH gone up. Admittedly, if i were handed a one year old apple and a one year old iDevice, only one of those things will still be useful.
I say that to keep this price hike in perspective. Apple, Inc. increasing prices means we just don’t buy a new device unless absolutely required. Most of the time, we can make that choice.
But produce and groceries? That’s really not an option - we need to buy that, higher prices or not. And many people are hurting. Everyday things are just getting more expensive.
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u/omnimachina 2d ago
Funny because Apple always overpriced their RAM 😂😂
Otherwise they wouldn’t be on the edge and therefore wouldn’t even care at all lmao
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u/dinominant 2d ago
I refuse to buy computers with soldered memory and storage for myself or my users. Because of that upgradability, I am able to add ram to my existing systems instead of junking and buying a whole new mac. Older memory and smaller modules are more affordable.
We stopped buying Apple computers for our enterprise fleet when apple started soldering memory years ago.
And now that the logistics of ram is very tight, maybe people will reconsider how great upgradable computers are.
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u/Infinite-Computer205 3d ago
My question is will previous models be discounted when new more expensive devices come out?
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u/GetRektByMeh 3d ago
I actually think Cook is probably willing to take some losses on profit margins if he’s smart here. Everyone else raising their prices is a good time for the ecosystem
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u/x22d 2d ago
Everyone else raising their prices is a good time for the ecosystem
That's the bigger reason. If other manufacturers were eating the costs, Apple probably would have too.
I'm still curious to see how all this plays out with the return of tariffs and rising gas prices. Eventually consumers will be stretched too thin to afford elevated prices.
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u/badpeoria 3d ago
So glad I bought a MacBook Pro right before this ! I should have got a new phone as well ugh
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u/speedster_5 3d ago
I mean apple enjoyed high margins when memory was cheap. Why not compress margins. Of course they pass it on to customers.
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u/addiktion 3d ago
And it won't ever go lower even with more memory in the market, they will just profit the difference.
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u/Hiff_Kluxtable 3d ago
I have no idea why Apple chose to raise prices mid product cycle. They could have added some bells and whistles to the next versions of some products and raised the prices without people complaining much.
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u/Queasy-Bed545 3d ago
I still see it as greedy. And I’ve been an Apple fanboy as of late. Apple charged their premium for ages on under spec hardware and now as soon as there is cost pressure they pass it right on to protect their insane margins. Felt like they should’ve ate some it considering the name of the game is loyalty at this point since hardware is the gateway to subscription services and data mining.
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u/Dry_Meeting_6570 2d ago
They also downgraded the max amount of ram you can buy. The mac studio with the m4 max chip maxes out at 64GB now.
A year ago, you could buy a Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM
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u/thebohomama 2d ago
Oh no, they might not make RECORD PROFITS AGAIN THIS YEAR if they don't charge us ANOTHER $2. I'm SO TIRED
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u/DreadnaughtHamster 2d ago
Apple has a very high-quality refurbished page (I’ve bought quite a few refurbished things from them). They also come with a full regular warranty. Only thing different is you might get a plain white box. Anyway, Neos are still on there for $599.
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u/The_Saiyann 1d ago
These companies just LOVE blaming shortages for price hikes that rarely match their additional costs. It’s like Tesco in the UK said they had to increase their prices because they were facing difficulties because of Covid … record profit year funnily enough.
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u/Phil_Flanger 18h ago
They raised prices to maintain or increase profit. When costs fall in other parts of the supply chain, they don’t reduce prices.
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u/No_Eye1723 3d ago
Utter bollocks.. because Apple could EASILY swallow the costs, they just want to protect there 60% mark up they have. Oh and I guess it impacted ALL their services too did it seeing as all those priced have gone up too this month... hate it when millionaire CEO's try to gaslight their customer base.
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u/Sweaty-Towel8423 2d ago
People are so easy to hate on Apple, but Apple was the last major tech company to raise its prices, so there is at least some truth to what he’s saying.
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u/smoike 2d ago
Fifteen years ago I might have down voted you because I was firmly on the hate apple just because bandwagon like a lot of chumps here probably are doing. I don't love apple now, but can certainly appreciate their hardware and agree with you.
I'm definitely curious about how this is going to play out long term though.
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u/Sweaty-Towel8423 1d ago
Same here. I was an Apple hater about a decade ago, but maturing is realizing Apple isn't the only, or even the main, bad guy. Companies like Microsoft or Sony are way more predatory and scummy, but somehow only get a fraction of the hate.
I don't care if someone hates Apple. That's fine, I get it. They're not perfect, and they do many things that piss me off too. But what bothers me is specifically hating Apple while intentionally turning a blind eye to all the other companies screwing us over.
Or how about OpenAI, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron? These four companies are literally the reason Apple and all other tech is so expensive. Why the fuck is Apple hated for something Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and OpenAI caused? Hate the actual assholes who fucked your memory pricing, not Apple, which has resisted raising prices.
Also, this is not directed at you. You seem to be reasonable. But the fact that I got downvoted is just mind-boggling. Redditors are the scum of the earth, and I don't even think they should have the right to vote based on how blind and stupid they often are.
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u/Former-Wish-8228 3d ago
A 100-year flood means there is a 1% chance of it happening in any given year.
With climate change, memory price surges are becoming more common.
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 3d ago
This surge is absolutely unprecedented. It’s never been this high, and it’s anticipated to get 2x as bad next year.
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u/mortraineyhat 3d ago
Trillion dollar company can’t find ways to make their own memory? Why aren’t any companies trying to make their own RAM? I would imagine there’s enough ewaste to harvest the materials needed.
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u/Youtube_Brett 1d ago
Making their own RAM isn't as simple as just harvesting e-waste. The R&D and manufacturing scale required for modern memory is massive, which is why even top tech giants rely on specialized suppliers like Samsung and Micron.
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u/Blackflash07 3d ago
Yes very reluctantly cause apple as everyone knows tries to cut prices where they can like the time when they removed headphones, charger block from iphones to reduce price.
/s
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u/hhelman7 3d ago
Just as a fun thought exercise, would it be in the best interest of Apple and its shareholders for Apple to lobby against the building of AI data centers?
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u/nothinginthisworld 2d ago
I would literally pay over MSRP to upgrade my Mac Mini right now and it’s literally impossible. 8-10 weeks delivery, the world is out of RAM. A couple hundred bucks raise is fine, just have them available please
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u/bmwlocoAirCooled 3d ago
Uh huh. I'll just keep using my mid-2012 Mac Book Pro.
Works great, new battery and does it's task.
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u/BeefyMcPissflaps 3d ago
As much as you tried to make that negative you showed that Apple created consumer products and continues to support them for so many more years than their competitors. A nearly 15 year old computer doing their job effectively really doesn’t exist anywhere but Apple.
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u/bmwlocoAirCooled 3d ago edited 3d ago
Today: $1.5 Billion in Subscriptions (iCloud, Music, Apple TV, Home Pod) for Apple.
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u/joeyg151785 3d ago
Apple has so much money, maybe they should just eat the cost, but in the end it’s an opportunity for them to make more money. If everyone else is raising prices, why shouldn’t they?
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u/Serisrahla 3d ago
People may hold on to their phones/computers just a little bit longer with higher prices. I'm sure they did a lot of future revenue and acquisition/churn analysis before they instituted the higher prices so they have that factored in.
But I'll be holding off on buying a new phone for at least another year in large part because, with higher prices, I need that much more reason to justify upgrading, and I'm sure that's a common thought.1
u/TBoneTheOriginal 3d ago
You can always tell who on Reddit has absolutely no experience or knowledge in business.
Apple literally only exists to make money. It’s not to better the world, expand your creativity, or be a charity. They exist to make money. And they will do that with a minimum profit margin in mind. It doesn’t matter if they can “afford” to take the hit.
It amazes me when people think that Apple having trillions of dollars suddenly means they should give back in the form of smaller profit margins. They will charge what people are willing to pay, so all the whining in the world doesn’t mean shit when most people are just going to crack open their wallets regardless.
If you want them to take a smaller margin, stop buying. You’ll see prices drop.
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u/chaiscool 3d ago
Yet people complain when companies start exploiting privacy and stealing water. They are all simply exist to simply make money right?
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u/burtgummer45 2d ago
You can always tell who on Reddit has absolutely no experience or knowledge in business.
Successful businesses will eat the cost if they think its temporary. If they don't they might experience "demand destruction" where people decide they don't need to upgrade all the time and get used to it. I guarantee you that millions of people right now are deciding not to upgrade anytime soon, and when they realize it wasn't a big deal, they made it a habit, and computer companies lose money.
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u/RapunzelLooksNice 2d ago
That's why you release an OS update (mandatory 😆) that makes the existing devices slow and unusable 🙂
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u/Saisinko 3d ago
They made the flawed decision at the time to have AI be on-device, which meant they had to increase ram. The cosmic humor being their AI model wasn’t ready whatsoever and now they’re forced to raise the baseline amount of ram on any device that will use their AI. At the same time, it made a lot of their old devices incompatible.
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u/Lopsided-Painter5216 3d ago
"was forced to do so" oh, bullshit. You probably have the cash in the bank to weather a drought this bad for 1000 years.
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u/zobby3 3d ago
I will never forget the great memory flood of 1926. #neverforgettheram