- Apple's iPhone 18 Pro series is powered by A20 Pro SoC fabbed on a TSMC 2nm process.
- TMSC's 2nm GAA process reportedly delivered 18% faster speeds and 30% lower power consumption.
- The icing on the cake is the inflated BOM that could mean iPhone 18 Pro could cost around $1,399.
The Apple iPhone 18 Pro series, powered by the A20 Pro SoC, is slated to debut earlier next month. Turns out, the iPhone 18 Pro price may get a slightly higher price tag thanks to the ballooning cost of components. Perhaps the increased performance quotient on the upcoming A20 Pro chipset will keep you engaged, but hey, expect a steeper price tag on the upcoming flagship, even though an earlier report suggested a different story.
iPhone 18 Pro price may rise as memory costs increase
According to tipster Fixed Focus Digital, shared on Weibo, the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro will draw its power from the A20 Pro chipset produced by Taiwan-based TSMC. The chipset uses an all-new 2nm N2P Gate-All-Around (GAA) process capable of delivering around 18% higher performance compared to its predecessor.
For the unversed, this is a massive uptick in performance. In fact, the tipster also quoted a lower power consumption by up to 30% thanks to the new manufacturing process in place. Technically, the A20 Pro SoCs use 20% higher transistor density, which means they can power more while taking less footprint. Think of it as a Ferrari packing in 1000HP of power in an engine footprint of 800HP compared to its predecessor.
As per the reports, Apple’s A20 Pro chipset will be the first one to use TMSC’s 2nm GAA process, which is capable of delivering 10-15% higher speeds at the same power and 25-30% lower power consumption while outputting the same performance. All this is in comparison to Apple’s A19 Pro that debuted with the iPhone 17 Pro series in 2025. This is perhaps a huge uptick, but it doesn’t come without caveats.
While getting a better-performing flagship phone is great, it could also indicate the prices would go spiraling as well. Turns out the reported Bill of Materials (BOM) on the iPhone 18 Pro is up by 40%. Bifurcating it by quarters, we see an uptick of 34% in 3Q26 and an even steeper 42% in 1H27, and that’s only for the memory components. For comparison, this would cost Apple 10% of the total BOM just a year ago, as per a TrendForce report.
This goes to show just how expensive getting these components has become, which will ultimately skyrocket the price of the phones themselves. Apparently, the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro could cost around $1,399 compared to $1,099 on the iPhone 17 Pro (base model).
Apple has been absorbing the increased BOM for quite some time now. However, ongoing supply chain complications and memory shortages have compelled even the best of tech juggernauts to hike the price tags, and it seems like Apple will follow suit soon.
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