Apple’s upcoming iPhone 18 Pro lineup could see its steepest price increase in years, with several analysts now projecting a starting price of $1,399 for the Pro model.
This marks a $300 jump over the iPhone 17 Pro’s $1,099 starting price.
The anticipated increase in price is attributed to memory cost pressure. During his final earnings call as CEO on July 20, Tim Cook confirmed that the company faces immense rising memory costs for three consecutive quarters and expects fourth-quarter memory costs to climb even higher.
Cook told analysts: “We reluctantly raised pricing”, describing the situation as a “100-year flood on memory pricing with exponential increases.”
Industry experts claim that the cause behind the rise is due to a supply shortage caused by AI data centers. It is estimated that an iPhone 18 Pro has been estimated to cost around $145 in terms of its DRAM packaging in comparison to approximately $39 in the iPhone 17 Pro, which amounts to a whopping 272 per cent rise.
IDC forecasts that there will be an additional cost of around $200 in the Pro versions, bringing down the starting cost of the iPhone 18 Pro to approximately $1,299 and the Pro Max version to $1,399.
The cost increase will amount to a 27 per cent rise in the Pro version, which has always been a move made only for more expensive products by Apple, such as the MacBook range.
