Overview
- Apple CEO John Ternus described current RAM pricing as "unprecedented" and said costs will climb further into the year and beyond.
- The company has more than doubled inventory to $14.5 billion and increased manufacturing purchase obligations by $33 billion as it stockpiles lower-priced memory.
- Apple told investors it will use those inventories to soften the impact but warned gross margin will fall to about 45–46% in the December quarter mainly because of memory costs.
- Apple said Mac and iPad supply will be tight in the near term and would not rule out additional device price increases, with higher-RAM models most at risk.
- Other industry players have forecast multi-year memory tightness, which could keep device prices elevated and constrain availability into 2027 and beyond.