iPhone 18 Pro could cost £200 more as Apple's memory crisis deepens

Apple's memory crunch has already hit your MacBook — the iPhone is next

Apple raised the prices of its Mac and iPad lines across the UK on 25 June 2026, in what the company called an unavoidable response to a global shortage of memory and storage components. Now analysts are warning that the iPhone 18 Pro, expected to launch in September, could follow with increases of up to £200 — the steepest rise in the iPhone's nineteen-year history.

The 25 June hikes were sweeping. In the UK, the MacBook Neo rose from £599 to £699, while the MacBook Pro and Mac Studio saw even larger jumps. The iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad mini and the base iPad with an A16 chip all increased by between £100 and £200 on the same day. Apple's own statement confirmed the scale of the problem: "The rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage," the company said, adding that it had "reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products."

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg: "We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions."

Apple CEO Tim Cook had signalled the direction of travel in a Wall Street Journal interview on 17 June, describing the supply situation as a "hundred-year flood" — something he said he had never encountered in more than 40 years in the industry. Shares in Apple closed more than 6% lower on the day the new pricing went live, the company's worst single-day fall since April 2025.

What analysts are forecasting for iPhone 18 Pro pricing

Apple has made no announcement about iPhone 18 pricing, and no confirmed figure will emerge until the expected September launch event — a date reported as 9 September but not officially confirmed by Apple. What the analyst community is now debating is not whether the iPhone 18 Pro will cost more, but by how much.

IDC Senior Director of Data and Analytics Nabila Popal has been among the most direct. Her firm had previously modelled a $100 increase for the Pro and Pro Max models and a $50 increase for the base iPhone 18. Having now seen Mac and iPad hikes reach as high as $300 in the US, she revised her view publicly: "My personal instinct says the hike to iPhones may be even higher than what we assumed — perhaps even $200 to the Pro and Pro Max models. I think the days of $50 price increases are over."

Research firm TechInsights went further in its cost modelling. It estimates that to preserve Apple's current profit margins, the company would need to raise the iPhone 18 Pro's price by $270. The Wall Street Journal reported that the iPhone 17 Pro's $1,099 US starting price could rise to $1,399 or more for the iPhone 18 Pro.

Not everyone is so alarmed. J.P. Morgan analysts told clients they do not expect a dramatic increase on Pro models, predicting Apple will limit rises to no more than $50 and offset costs in other ways — including greater reliance on Apple's own C-series modem rather than buying in components from Qualcomm.

In the UK, no pound-sterling figure has been officially indicated. UK retailer Vendi has estimated the iPhone 18 Pro at around £1,199 for the 256GB model, implying a £100 increase over the iPhone 17 Pro's current £1,099 starting price. However, that estimate predates the upward revisions prompted by June's Mac and iPad hikes. If Apple applies the same pound-for-dollar logic it used on 25 June — and its precedent suggests it might — a £200 rise would put the entry-level iPhone 18 Pro at around £1,299.

Why memory costs have spiralled so sharply

The root cause is a structural shift in who is buying memory. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have redirected silicon wafer capacity toward the high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators, which earns margins roughly 50% higher per wafer than conventional mobile DRAM. The knock-on effect for smartphones has been severe.

According to TrendForce's latest memory pricing survey, conventional DRAM contract prices rose 58–63% quarter-over-quarter in Q2 2026, while NAND flash prices jumped 70–75% in the same period — following a record Q1 in which DRAM contracts climbed 90–95%. TechInsights estimates that Apple paid around $39 for the 12GB of DRAM in the iPhone 17 Pro; the same component could cost $145 in the iPhone 18 Pro. The 256GB NAND flash tier that cost Apple roughly $13 per unit last year is now projected to cost approximately $51.

Foundry costs are rising too. TSMC is increasing prices by 5–10% across all advanced nodes, affecting Apple alongside AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. Meaningful capacity expansion is not expected until late 2027 at the earliest, as cloud providers continue to lock up available supply through long-term agreements.

What's coming in September — and beyond

IDC expects all iPhone 18 models to ship with 12GB of RAM, a threshold Apple has set as the minimum for its full Apple Intelligence feature suite. The iPhone 18 Pro range is expected to run Apple's A20 chip on TSMC's 2nm process, with variable-aperture cameras and a 24-megapixel TrueDepth front camera on Pro models.

A foldable iPhone is also anticipated, with Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reporting it is expected to "cross the $2,000 threshold" — which would make it the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever sold. IDC thinks the foldable could carry an average selling price of $2,500, with higher storage configurations reaching as much as $3,000.

The standard iPhone 18 and the budget iPhone 18e are not expected to arrive until spring 2027, meaning the Pro models launching in September will set the tone for how consumers and rivals respond to Apple's new pricing reality. Apple may also remove lower storage tiers entirely — a tactic Samsung used with the Galaxy S26, which dropped its 128GB option to normalise a 256GB starting point and the higher price that comes with it.

• Apple raised UK Mac and iPad prices by £100–£300 on 25 June 2026
• IDC forecasts a potential $200 US increase on iPhone 18 Pro; TechInsights says $270 would be needed to hold margins
• J.P. Morgan is more cautious, predicting no more than a $50 rise on Pro models
• No UK pricing has been confirmed by Apple; the September launch event date has been reported but not officially announced
• The foldable iPhone could cost $2,000–$3,000 in the US, according to analyst estimates