‘100-Year flood on memory pricing’: Tim Cook explains why Apple raised prices

Apple is gradually increasing prices of its products across categories and nations. Recently, Indian buyers saw a massive price hike for iPads, Macs, Apple TV, and other devices, and iPhone 17 price hike is reported to be announced soon. Amid a price hike, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company did not want to increase the prices of its products, but rising memory component costs forced it to pass the expense to customers.

During Apple’s Q3 2026 earnings call, Cook said, “On the pricing front, you know, we reluctantly raised prices. I would say we did it because we're in what I would characterize as a 100-year flood on memory pricing with exponential increases in memory prices, so that was the rationale for it.”

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Cook also revealed that the price hike is not solely to protect its profit margins or total profits. Instead, the company evaluates several factors before deciding how much prices should increase.

“We look at units, revenue, and margin, and then come to a business judgment as to how to handle that, and so it's not a mathematical formula that gets us to a specific result, or just looking at one dimension of that. We look at all three dimensions and think about it over the long term instead of, you know, a 90-day clock,” he said.

Apple also anticipates that prices for memory components, such as DRAM and NAND storage chips, will continue to rise, eventually increasing prices of manufactured devices. The company has also stockpiled supplies of components purchased earlier at lower prices to balance the pricing.

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As of now, Apple has not revealed whether we can expect price hikes for the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Fold models. In addition, the company has increased prices of iPhone 17 models in Japan, and the trend may follow in other regions as well.