Despite efforts to stave off the effects of ongoing component shortages, memory chief among them, Apple just committed to spending an additional $33 billion on manufacturing this quarter. For context, that’s more than a quarter of the company’s total net profit from 2025.
Chief operating officer, Sabih Khan dropped this bombshell increase in expenditure during the company’s Q4 2026 earnings call, with Apple CEO John Ternus describing current memory price rises as “unprecedented.” However, it seems the firm’s memory troubles are far from over, with chief financial officer Kevan Parekh echoing industry-wide concerns that RAM prices will continue to rise into next year.
Apple raised the prices of its devices earlier this year, some by almost 20% in the UK, specifically citing the impacts of rising memory costs, and the iPhone 18 Pro Max has become the most-expensive base Max model to date, with a starting price of £1,299. The company hasn’t confirmed whether this $33B hike in manufacturing spend will have further knock-on effects for existing and future product launches, but this outcome seems highly likely.
Prior to this new spending commitment, Apple had softened the blow of memory prices through carrying inventory and lower costs elsewhere in the manufacturing chain. Ternus described these variables as providing “some offset” but the company didn’t dive into specifics during the call.
This additional $33B spend has prompted a pre-emptive warning of company margins dropping ahead of the next quarter. However, with a gross margin of 47.9% right now, Apple at least has the financials to support such a splurge.
In this same quarter, the company reported $57.58B worth of sales from iPhone alone, beating expectations by a cool $1.04B. Meanwhile, the company made another $31.57B from its services sector, while Mac, iPad, and wearables brought in a combined $25.32B. That’s $114.47B in total, for those not counting.
While some other memory-contingent companies haven’t been as transparent about their increased component spending, their effects are readily apparent on the market via exponentially higher price tags. Unfortunately, we’re far from being out of the woods with this crisis, with Nvidia reportedly planning yet another GeForce RTX 50 price rise.
Suffice it to say, this probably won’t be the last time we see Apple report an exorbitant increase in manufacturing spending, with memory prices only likely to climb in the near future. With this in mind, if you’re struggling to make the jump to DDR5, check out Ben’s best DDR4 upgrade guide.
