- Memory costs are increasing day-by-day, however, it seems Apple wants to buffer buyers from the costing.
- iPhone 18 series reportedly to get the same price tags as iPhone 17 series.
- Although we heard about base 256GB models to attract the same pricing, if this turns out to be true, we could see all iPhone 18 variants to match the pricing of iPhone 17.
Despite increasing memory prices, iPhone 18 series prices may remain unchanged, as per Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, and that’s good news.
Apple is ready to buffer increasing memory costs, tapping iPhone 18 price the same as iPhone 17’s
Earlier, we learned how Apple may not be immune to price changes, given the exorbitant price hikes in memory chips plaguing the globe. In fact, Samsung has agreed to hike the price of its iPhone memory prices by 80%, while other memory makers are going for twice that at best. Despite all this, Kuo believes Apple could still hold the price tags on the iPhone 18 series in order to retain buyers and not make them opt to skip the series altogether.
Kuo points out how LPDDR memory prices are increasing while NAND flash drive prices remain lower. Rumors suggest the Cupertino giant has been asked to negotiate prices every quarter rather than every six months. Even though this means Apple may not fix prices on the memory chips beyond three months, it goes on to show just how influential Apple is with its suppliers.
Going further, Kuo mentions Apple will have to eat the increasing costs and could use market chaos as a tactic to bring in more customers. From what we know so far, Apple iPhone 18 prices will remain unchanged from the iPhone 17 series. This further backs our previous report suggesting the base variant on each iPhone 18 series model remains the same price as its iPhone 17 counterpart. Of course, it also means the higher storage models may attract higher prices, although the recent report seems to negate that.
According to Kuo, Apple may play around with the pricing on its hardware, i.e., iPhones, to be followed by higher service costs in the future. Moreover, the Gemini-powered Siri and other AI features, thanks to the ever-growing AI boom, add to the services side of the business. It means keeping the price tags on the hardware enablers gives Apple a much better chance to make up the cost in the services part.
Apple iPhone 18 series launch schedule
The Apple iPhone 18 series is expected to arrive in September this year. Here, at least the Pro variants would arrive first, while the non-Pro variants would launch on another launch slot in early 2027. Nothing is set in stone, though, so we might see changes coming in the days ahead since we are at least eight months away from the iPhone 18 series launch.
