Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro launched in Australia from A$2,099, against A$1,999 for last year’s entry Pro at launch, and the 2 TB Pro Max went from A$3,799 to A$4,699. The chip a phone uses as its working memory is known as DRAM, and industry analysts say AI servers now come first for it. Apple has told US regulators its memory costs are rising. Micron’s gross margin, 84.6 per cent in its fiscal third quarter to May, is one public reading of how far memory pricing has run.
What changed
Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max on 9 September 2026. According to Apple’s Australian newsroom, the iPhone 18 Pro starts at a recommended retail price of A$2,099 including GST, and the Pro Max at A$2,299. A year earlier, Apple’s Australian release for the iPhone 17 Pro listed the entry Pro at A$1,999 and the entry Pro Max at A$2,199. Both entry models are A$100 higher, launch week to launch week. The new phones became available in Australia on Friday 18 September.
The step is larger further up the range. On Apple’s Australian store page, the 512 GB Pro is listed at A$2,499, against A$2,399 at last year’s launch. The 1 TB Pro is A$3,299, against A$2,799, and the 1 TB Pro Max is A$3,499, against A$2,999: each is A$500 higher. The 2 TB Pro Max is A$4,699, against A$3,799 a year ago, a rise of A$900 and the largest on any single tier. A 2 TB Pro, at A$4,499, is new this year and has no year-earlier price to compare. These are Apple’s own list prices; carrier plans and trade-in offers differ.
The rise is not confined to Australia. Apple’s US entry price for the Pro is US$1,199, against US$1,099 in Apple’s September 2025 release, which puts the US increase at US$100 as well.
Apple has not said why the price went up. What Apple has said sits in its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 27 June 2026, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission: the company is experiencing supply constraints and increasing costs for components, including storage (NAND) and memory (DRAM). In July, the research firm TrendForce said smartphone vendors were expected to raise retail prices in the September quarter to offset memory costs, as suppliers prioritised AI-related applications when allocating production capacity.
Why it binds
A phone relies on two kinds of memory chip. DRAM is the working memory: it holds what the processor is using at that moment. NAND flash is the storage that keeps apps, photos and files when the phone is off. TechInsights’ teardown of the iPhone 18 Pro Max found Apple’s A20 Pro processor paired with LPDDR5X memory, a low-power form of DRAM, and 256 GB of NAND flash. iFixit’s teardown found the memory now sits beside the processor rather than stacked on it. Apple does not publish how much DRAM the phone carries, and neither teardown states it.
The same kind of chip goes into servers, and that is where the constraint sits. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron each make DRAM. Samsung said in its June-quarter results that its memory business was addressing AI demand despite limited capacity, with a primary focus on server products. TrendForce estimates that high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which sits beside AI processors, and server modules known as RDIMM together account for 51 per cent of DRAM bit supply in 2026. The same release says server DRAM contract prices rose a cumulative 64 per cent in the second half of 2025, with a further rise of about 270 per cent expected across 2026.
For phones, the pressure shows up as cost. TechInsights says memory now accounts for more than 30 per cent of the bill of materials of a premium phone, and roughly 60 per cent for phones priced under US$400. Its tracker puts a 96 Gb LPDDR5 mobile DRAM part at about US$140 in June 2026 and about US$165 in the September launch window, and a 256 GB mobile NAND part at about US$68 and about US$82 over the same months. TechInsights says memory cost per gigabit has roughly tripled since 2025, and its forecasts indicate prices rising beyond the September launch and into 2027. These are TechInsights’ indicative market figures, not the prices Apple pays.
TrendForce’s quarterly survey points the same way. In its July release it forecast conventional DRAM contract prices, an aggregate across all applications including servers, up 13 to 18 per cent quarter on quarter in the September quarter, and NAND flash up 10 to 15 per cent. Those are forecasts for a quarter that ends on 30 September; the actual figures are not yet published. In a 9 July release, TrendForce said a server DRAM shortage is already anticipated for 2027.
Who absorbs it
At the counter, buyers of the new Pro models pay Apple’s higher list price: A$100 more at the entry tier, and A$900 more on the 2 TB Pro Max. Apple reports carrying part of the cost itself. Its 10-Q says higher costs, including memory, partly offset gains in its products gross margin in the June quarter. That statement covers Apple’s products as a whole, not the iPhone price, and Apple has not linked the two.
The large cloud providers are the other buyer in the same market. TrendForce estimates that DRAM and NAND together account for 47 per cent of the major cloud providers’ capital spending in 2026, rising to 68 per cent in 2027. It names no provider.
On the other side of these transactions, the higher prices arrive as revenue for the memory makers. SK hynix (KRX: 000660) reported record June-quarter revenue of 79.3 trillion won, and said high-performance products for AI servers led its price increases. Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930) reported consolidated June-quarter revenue of 171.5 trillion won. Micron (NASDAQ: MU) reported revenue of US$41.46 billion for its fiscal third quarter to 28 May 2026, against US$23.86 billion the quarter before and US$9.30 billion a year earlier, with a GAAP gross margin of 84.6 per cent.
Gross margin is the share of revenue left after the direct cost of making what was sold. When a chip’s selling price rises faster than the cost of producing it, that share rises. This is why the memory makers’ gross margins serve as a public reading of how far memory pricing has run ahead of the device makers that buy the chips.
None of the three memory makers names Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) as a customer in these releases, and none gives a price for phone memory. The link between their results and the iPhone price runs through the market for the chip, as TrendForce and TechInsights describe it, not through any disclosed contract.
What to watch
Micron reports its fiscal fourth quarter on Wednesday 30 September 2026, according to its notice of the date, with its conference call at 2:30 p.m. US Mountain time, which is 6:30 a.m. AEST on Thursday 1 October. In June, Micron guided that quarter to revenue of about US$50.0 billion, plus or minus US$1.0 billion, and a gross margin of approximately 86 per cent, against the 84.6 per cent it reported for the quarter before.
The reading rule does not depend on any one result. A gross margin that keeps rising, together with higher guidance for the quarter after, would indicate that memory makers are still pricing ahead of device makers. A margin that falls would indicate that the pressure on memory costs may be easing. Either reading concerns the memory market, not what Apple will charge for its next phone.
A second reading follows from TrendForce. Its next quarterly release on contract prices would show whether its September-quarter forecast of 13 to 18 per cent for conventional DRAM held.
