Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro is shaping up to become more expensive to produce, with a new estimate suggesting the 256GB model will cost about 38 percent more in components than the iPhone 17 Pro.
TrendForce says the main reason is memory pricing, which has risen sharply since the start of 2025 and now takes up a much larger share of the iPhone’s total bill of materials.
Memory accounted for roughly 10 percent of the component cost of a 256GB iPhone Pro last year, but TrendForce expects that figure to reach about 34 percent in the third quarter of 2026 and rise above 40 percent during the first half of 2027.
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That shift means memory will become the most expensive part of the device, pushing display and application processor costs into a much smaller share of the overall component bill even though those parts remain important.
Apple may absorb part of the increase
TrendForce expects Apple to take a similar approach to its recent MacBook pricing strategy, where the company accepted some pressure on gross margins instead of passing the full increase in manufacturing costs directly to customers.
That strategy would help Apple avoid a sharp jump in the iPhone 18 Pro starting price while still recovering part of the higher production cost through more moderate price increases across the lineup.
The firm also believes Apple could raise prices on older iPhone models when the iPhone 18 series arrives, which would spread the cost recovery across more devices instead of placing the entire burden on the new Pro models.
Memory prices have reportedly increased five to seven times since early 2025, and Apple has already raised prices across several Mac, iPad, Apple TV, HomePod, and Vision Pro products because of the same pressure.
The iPhone lineup avoided those increases earlier this year, but the latest component estimates make a higher iPhone 18 Pro price increasingly likely when Apple introduces the new lineup next month.
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