- Apple CEO warns of ‘significantly higher memory costs’
- Starting in June, we’re told the cost of RAM will ‘have an increasing impact’ on Apple Macs
- Samsung also warned of the memory crisis and that “significant shortages” will continue until at least 2027.
Apple is warning about the impact of increasingly expensive RAM with its products, and a major memory chip maker has also contributed to the grim news around RAM supply and pricing.
MacRumors reports that Apple just released its quarterly results and CEO Tim Cook observed that memory costs increased in the March quarter (Q2 of its fiscal year). Additionally, Cook said that in the next quarter (June), Apple expects “significantly higher memory costs” and that starting in June 2026, the cost of RAM “will have an increasing impact” on Apple products.
Sounds worrying, doesn’t it? Part of the problem is that the large stockpile of RAM that Apple had accumulated – paid for in the past when prices were still at more normal levels – is starting to run out, so naturally something will have to give when it comes to pricing.
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We’re not sure exactly what, and all the CEO would say is that Apple is exploring a “range of options” to address potential price increases from having to pay more (much more, no doubt) for RAM.
9 to 5 Mac chimed in, observing that Cook also commented on Apple’s two Mac stock issues that have been seen recently. The CEO said: “On Mac mini and Mac Studio, both of those are incredible platforms for AI and agent tools, and customer recognition is happening faster than we anticipated, and so we’ve seen higher demand than expected.
This is due to the popularity of running local AI on a device with lots of memory, such as the more robust configurations of these Macs (due to the success of the OpenClaw AI agent).
Cook also noted that demand for the new MacBook Neo is “off the charts” and that for all of these Macs, it may take Apple a few months to address the supply gap.
Elsewhere besides Apple, Tom’s Hardware noted that Samsung, one of the big memory chip makers, just released its own earnings report, with executive vice president Kim Jaejune warning that “significant shortages” in its memory products are expected to persist at least through 2027 (that is, 2028). We’re told that demand fulfillment rates are now at record lows, meaning Samsung is struggling to meet the level of demand like never before.
Analysis: dangerous waters ahead
Samsung isn’t the only one sounding the alarm when it comes to memory, as one of the other big three chipmakers in this area, SK Hynix, warned in March that the RAM crisis was going to be long-lasting – its effects could be felt as far into the future as 2030. Whichever way you look at it, there are warnings that the RAM crisis will continue until 2028, or even longer. Only the third major memory maker, Micron, has yet to issue a warning.
Apple’s plight obviously reinforces this message, and it will be interesting to see what kinds of options Tim Cook considers to combat the lack of RAM and avoid having to raise the prices of its Macs. Clearly, Apple has a lot of leverage to play in getting the best supply chain prices, but at this point I imagine there’s little wiggle room in contract negotiations, even for global tech giants.
Then again, after introducing the MacBook Neo as a truly affordable laptop, Apple can’t exactly go back and raise prices on this particular offering, so it seems like these could be difficult waters to navigate for Captain Cook – or more accurately, Captain Ternus, as it soon will be. It’s an interesting time to take over Apple, that’s for sure.
Some people on Reddit are certainly preparing for the worst, namely rising Mac prices. As the most upvoted comment on this thread in the Apple subreddit stated: “Oh come on now, we all know how Apple plans to ‘fix the problem.’ No one needs the CEO to explain the price increases Apple will make in the not-too-distant future.
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