--- title: "As DRAM prices soar, \"Apple supply chain prophet\" Ming-Chi Kuo declares that the iPhone 18 will not increase in price: Apple aims to exchange profit for market share" type: "News" locale: "zh-HK" url: "https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/273926859.md" description: "Against the backdrop of surging demand for storage chips in global AI data centers, DRAM prices have skyrocketed. Apple plans not to raise the price of the iPhone 18 to maintain market share. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo pointed out that although rising memory costs will impact the gross margin of the iPhone, Apple will respond by securing chip supply and absorbing costs. JP Morgan analysts believe that Apple's scale effect is sufficient to absorb these costs and have raised the target price to $315" datetime: "2026-01-28T03:13:03.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/273926859.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/273926859.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/273926859.md) --- > 支持的語言: [简体中文](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/273926859.md) | [English](https://longbridge.com/en/news/273926859.md) # As DRAM prices soar, "Apple supply chain prophet" Ming-Chi Kuo declares that the iPhone 18 will not increase in price: Apple aims to exchange profit for market share According to the Zhitong Finance APP, the global surge in demand for AI computing power from ultra-large-scale AI data centers has led to a drastic supply shortage of storage chips, sweeping across various corners of the world. This skyrocketing price trend of storage chips is continuously driving up the hardware costs of DRAM memory in consumer electronics products, which is likely to impact the gross margin of Apple's flagship iPhone series products (AAPL.US) in the short term. However, a widely followed analyst in the Apple supply chain believes that Apple's management plans to avoid raising prices for its upcoming iPhone 18 series products. "There is no doubt that higher memory/DRAM costs will hit iPhone gross margins," said Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst from TF International Securities, in a post on X on Tuesday. "However, Apple's strategy is clear: to turn market chaos into an advantage—attempting to secure chip supply on a large scale, absorbing costs independently, sacrificing some scale margins to capture more market share—certain brands may lose some users due to price increases driven by DRAM costs. They will make money back on the service side." While investors are generally concerned that rising storage chip prices will erode hardware profits, another long-term analyst tracking the "Apple supply chain"—senior analyst Samik Chatterjee from JP Morgan—has provided a completely opposite judgment: Apple's massive scale effect in consumer electronics is sufficient to absorb these costs. JP Morgan has significantly raised its target price for Apple to $315, with the core logic being the strong demand for the iPhone 17 series, and more importantly, the market is awaiting the arrival of the iPhone 18 cycle (which may include foldable models). The current strong execution is merely paving the way for the next super cycle. **Apple's latest comments on consumer electronics storage chips may affect other brands** Wall Street analysts will closely monitor what Apple will disclose regarding the storage chip shortage in its fiscal Q1 2026 earnings report, which is expected to be released after the U.S. stock market closes on Thursday, Eastern Time. "The comments that Apple's management is about to make during the earnings conference call or regarding the significant price increase of storage chips may actually have a more severe impact on the stock prices of other consumer electronics companies than on Apple itself or its suppliers," Kuo stated. This analyst noted that this stems from Apple's strong bargaining power in the supply chain and its robust ability to secure product supply. Kuo focuses on research related to the "Apple supply chain" and the consumer electronics industry, having accurately predicted the updates of Apple's new generation of iPhone, iPad, and other consumer electronics product lines as well as the future technological landscape of the "Apple supply chain." "Due to the excessively strong demand for storage chips, prices have continued to soar, and the pricing of iPhone storage chip/memory components is now negotiated quarterly instead of semi-annually, so another price increase is expected in Q2 of fiscal 2026," Kuo stated. "Currently, it appears that the quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) increase in Apple's DRAM memory chips in Q2 of fiscal 2026 will be similar to that of Q1 of fiscal 2026 Ming-Chi Kuo added that Apple plans to avoid any price increases as much as possible when releasing the iPhone 18 series consumer electronics this fall. Nevertheless, the frenzy of construction in AI data centers may not only affect the prices of DRAM and NAND storage chips but also impact other core components of smartphones globally. A research report from Wall Street financial giant Jefferies shows that prices for various GB types of DDR4 and DDR5 memory products surged by approximately 50% last quarter, further strengthening the incredible bargaining power of storage chip suppliers in the AI computing infrastructure supply chain. **Rumor has it that Samsung and SK Hynix doubled the DRAM prices supplied to Apple in the first quarter compared to the previous quarter.** On January 27, South Korean media reported that Samsung Electronics proposed an over 80% increase in LPDDR chip prices in negotiations with Apple, while SK Hynix's increase was about 100%. Statistics show that Apple's iPhone shipments last year were approximately 250 million units, making it a key customer for LPDDR. Some Wall Street analysts stated that this latest rumor regarding price adjustments for Apple's iPhone breaks the long-standing practice of Apple obtaining low-priced memory due to its market position, highlighting the severity of the current supply-demand imbalance in the storage chip market. Media reports indicate that the surge in memory prices for Apple is driven by aggressive investments in AI infrastructure by global tech giants, leading to a significant increase in DRAM demand, while suppliers are shifting their production capacity to HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), further exacerbating the supply shortage. Market research firm TrendForce predicts that general DRAM prices will rise significantly by 55-60% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter. Industry statistics show that since September 2025, the overall price increase for DDR5 memory has exceeded 300%, while DDR4 memory has increased by over 150%. Industry research from firms like Counterpoint Research indicates that the demand for data center-level memory from AI server systems is at least 8-10 times that of ordinary server systems. Such enormous demand has led AI servers to consume 53% of the global monthly memory production capacity, severely squeezing the capacity allocation for consumer-grade DDR memory products. Major cloud computing service providers, including Google and Microsoft, have thrown out huge procurement orders, even securing a portion of the idle capacity from the three major storage chip manufacturers for the next 2-3 years. Citigroup analysts expect that driven by the dual demand for AI training and inference, the ASP of DRAM for data center enterprise servers will skyrocket by 144% year-on-year in 2026 (previously forecasted at +91%); for mainstream products like the 64GB DDR5 RDIMM, Citigroup predicts its price will reach $620 in the first quarter of 2026, a 38% increase quarter-on-quarter, far exceeding the previous forecast of $518. In the NAND sector, Citigroup's predictions are similarly aggressive, raising the ASP growth expectation for 2026 from +44% to +74%; among them, the ASP for enterprise SSDs is expected to increase by 87% year-on-year. According to Citigroup analysts, the storage chip market will enter an extremely intense seller's market, with pricing power completely in the hands of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron The storage giants like SanDisk. In this week's earnings conference call, the market will focus on whether Apple's exclusive edge AI ecosystem—Apple Intelligence (the AI features integrated into platforms like iOS)—has successfully translated into user stickiness and stronger incremental revenue for consumer electronics like the iPhone. Wall Street analysts unanimously expect the company's revenue to still be primarily driven by iPhone and service revenue, but how AI accelerates revenue growth in consumer electronics and services, as well as when the new "brain-switching version" of Siri based on Google's Gemini large model will debut, will be key focal points ### 相關股票 - [Direxion Daily AAPL Bull 2X Shares (AAPU.US)](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/quote/AAPU.US.md) - [iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX.US)](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/quote/SOXX.US.md) - [Direxion Semicon Bull 3X (SOXL.US)](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/quote/SOXL.US.md) - [VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH.US)](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/quote/SMH.US.md) - [Apple (AAPL.US)](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/quote/AAPL.US.md) - [T-Rex 2X Long Apple Daily Target ETF (AAPX.US)](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/quote/AAPX.US.md) - [GraniteShares 2x Long AAPL Daily ETF (AAPB.US)](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/quote/AAPB.US.md) ## 相關資訊與研究 - [Baker Tilly Wealth Management LLC Has $7.69 Million Stock Holdings in Apple Inc. $AAPL](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/280900022.md) - [Apple Intelligence briefly appears in Chinese mainland before withdrawal](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/281116116.md) - [Apple Starts Buying Spree. 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