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21-06-2026
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The prices of Apple products will have to increase due to the new demand for memory chips from the artificial intelligence boom, outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook has told The Wall Street Journal.
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he told the newspaper on Wednesday, adding that his company has been “trying to shield customers from the increases” but that it had become “unsustainable.”
Cook did not specify the timing of the increases or which devices would be affected. It is also unclear, for instance, how much the price of Apple’s iPhone 18, which is expected to launch in September, will be affected.
“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” Cook said.
Citing an estimate from research firm TechInsights, the Journal reported that Apple would need to increase the price of its iPhone Pro model by $270 to maintain its current profit margin.
The rapid expansion of AI data centres has forced consumer electronics companies into fierce competition as supplies for key components are dwindling, driving prices sharply higher. Chips have undergone quarterly price increases of at least 50 percent since late 2025. Cook has worked in tech electronic supply chains his whole career, including stints at IBM and Compaq before joining Apple and said he has never experienced such an increase in prices, calling it a “hundred-year flood”.
Memory and storage costs are both concerns for Apple, with particular emphasis on the DRAM (dynamic random access memory) market due to AI infrastructure, Cook told the Journal. He said that more supply is being allocated to high-bandwidth memory, which is used a lot in AI servers.
China has leading memory and storage companies, but US firms would likely need specific licences to work with them under national security laws. Asked if restrictions should be eased, Cook said: “Everything needs to be on the table … I think we should look at all supplies.”
More than a dozen United States business leaders have joined President Donald Trump on his state visit to China, where he is discussing issues including trade, technology and artificial intelligence (AI) with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Upon arrival in Beijing on Wednesday, Trump introduced the group by telling Xi that they were all “distinguished representatives from the American business community” who “all respect and value China”, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.
The group told Xi that they “highly value the Chinese market” and hope to do more business in the country. The Chinese president responded by welcoming more “mutually beneficial cooperation” and assured them that American companies “will have broader prospects in China”.
The visit comes amid a long-simmering trade war between the two countries, after Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year triggered tit-for-tat levies that exceeded 100 percent. The two leaders are set to discuss extending a one-year truce on tariffs and the export of Chinese rare earth metals, agreements reached during their last meeting in South Korea in October last year.
As the US president was greeted with flowers and flags on a red carpet, the CEOs walked behind him as potent reminders of the business deals he hopes to sign between the world’s biggest economies.
The delegation largely consists of US executives seeking to resolve issues with Beijing.
SpaceX and Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and Goldman Sachs’s David Solomon are among the top business executives accompanying Trump on his visit. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
