Apple CEO Calls RAM Costs 'Unprecedented' as Mac Price Fears Grow

What Ternus actually said

The warning came during Apple's fiscal Q3 earnings call, where the company reported better-than-expected results driven by the iPhone, Mac mini and strong sales in China.

John Ternus, who recently replaced Tim Cook as Apple CEO, did not mince words about the memory market. "What we're seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented," he told analysts, according to The Guardian.

He added that memory costs will climb even higher in the final quarter of 2026 compared to the rest of the year — a period that has already seen a steep rise in RAM prices across the industry.

That language is a clear escalation from June 2026, when then-CEO Tim Cook warned of "significantly higher memory costs" that would "drive an increasing impact" on Apple products. "Unprecedented" is a stronger word than "significant," and it arrives after those earlier warnings already turned into real price increases.

Why Apple's margins are under pressure

Apple beat analyst forecasts, but the good news came with a caveat: higher memory costs are going to erode some of its profit margins.

That admission was enough to send Apple's stock lower, even as the company outperformed expectations. Investors are reading the memory crisis as a structural cost problem, not a one-quarter blip.

Apple has already responded by raising prices. Macs went up earlier this year, followed by iPads and, more recently, iPhones. Ternus acknowledged that those increases "provided some offset" for the ongoing component cost crisis.

The problem is that RAM is not a niche part. Every Mac, iPhone and iPad depends on memory, and Apple cannot easily swap suppliers or redesign around a global shortage. When memory gets more expensive, Apple either absorbs the cost or passes it on.

The bigger memory picture

Apple is not alone in ringing alarm bells about RAM. The warning fits a broader pattern of memory price warnings that have been building through 2026.

Earlier this year, SK Hynix warned that high RAM prices could persist until 2030, a timeline that makes Apple's "unprecedented" comment look less like hyperbole and more like a forecast. Memory makers are shifting capacity toward data center customers, and consumer device makers are feeling the squeeze.

For buyers, the practical question is whether 2027 brings another round of price hikes across Macs, iPads and iPhones. Apple has not announced specific increases tied to Ternus's warning, but the company has already shown it is willing to raise prices when costs rise.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that Apple's earnings beat suggests demand remains strong despite higher prices. The company is not losing customers yet — but the margin pressure is real, and Ternus is signaling that the cost environment is worse than Apple has seen before.

What it means for US, UK and EU buyers

Apple has not announced new price increases tied to Ternus's warning. The company's most recent hikes — on Macs, iPads and iPhones — are already in effect in the US, UK and EU. Any further changes would likely arrive with new product announcements or a quiet store update, as happened earlier this year.

If memory costs keep climbing into 2027, the safest assumption is that Apple will pass at least some of that cost to buyers rather than absorb it entirely. There is no confirmed timeline for the next increase.

Apple's earnings beat was real, but so is the memory problem. Ternus's warning is the clearest signal yet that the RAM crisis is not a passing phase, and buyers should treat further Mac and iPhone price increases as a live possibility rather than a distant worry.