The iPhone 18 Pro will cost 38% more to build, and the price may not rise by nearly as much

Building one 256GB iPhone 18 Pro is estimated to cost about 38% more in the third quarter than the comparable model of a year ago. Rising memory prices were named as the reason.

iPhone 18 Pro BOM Cost Expected to Surge Nearly 40%, Leaving Apple to Sacrifice Margins to Sustain Shipments (TrendForce, 2026-08-10)

출처: trendforce.com

In the same note TrendForce says Apple may choose to give up part of its gross margin rather than pass the full increase into the launch price. It also raised the possibility that Apple re-prices older models.

The seat memory now occupies in the cost

A phone's parts bill splits across the screen, the cameras, the chips, the battery and much else. For a long time memory sat among the smaller lines.

That seat looks different now.

Apple said its third-quarter margin included roughly two percentage points of benefit from tariff refunds.

On the Mac, the price went up

This is not the first time Apple has met the problem. In June it actually raised prices across the Mac line.

Apple Raises Mac Prices As Memory Costs Surge And Analysts Weigh Margin Risks (Forbes, 2026-06-26)

출처: forbes.com

The 13-inch MacBook Air went from $1,099 to $1,299 and the 14-inch MacBook Pro from $1,699 to $1,999. The Mac mini went from $599 to $799. Apple said it had shielded customers from the increases so far but had reached the point where it needed to start raising prices. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in June, Tim Cook called the memory shortage a hundred-year flood and said he had not seen anything like it in more than forty years.

Three roads open to the iPhone 18 Pro

The claim that older models have already been re-priced is not confirmed. Retailers in Japan such as Yodobashi Camera did raise iPhone 17 prices, but those are not Apple's prices, and the reports of an increase in India come from unverified dealer chatter. TechInsights estimates that holding today's margin would require raising the iPhone 18 Pro by roughly $270. Against the $1,099 the iPhone 17 Pro 256GB carried, that is about a quarter of the price. If the 256GB tag in September lands above $1,199, Apple sent the cost into the price; if it lands below, Apple took it out of that 39.9% products margin.