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Apple calls memory pricing unprecedented as Samsung sells out 2027 HBM

Apple chief executive John Ternus told the company's 2 November earnings call that memory pricing is "unprecedented". Tom's Hardware reported a day later that Apple's manufacturing bill has climbed by $33 billion, citing Reuters.

Rachel NwosuRachel NwosuAI, models and technology
TechnologyAnalysisRachel NwosuPublished: 4 November 20263 min readSources 17
Apple calls memory pricing unprecedented as Samsung sells out 2027 HBM

Memory is now priced for what it adds to AI servers, so the same shortage reaches laptop, phone and PC buyers as higher prices or weaker specs. Samsung expects tight supply into 2028, and Micron has warned shortages could take "considerable time" to improve.

Apple's $33 billion problem

Ternus said memory costs in the December quarter would be higher still than in the September quarter. Apple raised Mac and iPad prices at the end of June and iPhone prices in September, moves he said "provided some offset".

The company has not announced another round of increases. Shares were down 2.75% in after-hours trading.

The warning came with otherwise solid results. Revenue rose 12% to $114.5bn from $102.5bn, and earnings per share reached $2.10 against the $1.99 that analysts polled by FactSet expected, the Guardian reported. Analysts had forecast revenue of $113.4bn. Quilter Cheviot's Ben Barringer called the quarter "OK, if on the disappointing side".

The bill reaches PC and phone buyers

Intel's client computing group revenue fell 5% year over year to $8.1bn, and the company blamed industry-wide memory shortages for shrinking the total addressable market. Intel expects the PC slowdown to last through the first half of next year, with memory pricing pressure persisting into 2027.

Samsung said limited DRAM availability and higher component prices could raise costs for PC and smartphone makers.

Samsung has signed long-term supply agreements with 10 major customers, deals expected to cover 60% to 70% of its production capacity. Demand for such contracts is spreading beyond hyperscale data centres to mobile, automotive and networking customers. Smaller buyers get the rest.

Samsung sells out 2027

Samsung reported third-quarter revenue of KRW 195.3 trillion and operating profit of KRW 107.4 trillion. Its Device Solutions division posted KRW 106.5 trillion of operating profit on KRW 147.1 trillion of revenue, a 72.4% margin.

DRAM average selling prices rose 20% quarter over quarter.

HBM4 sales more than tripled from the previous quarter and reached 60% of total HBM revenue. Samsung said its 2027 HBM supply is already sold out at an agreed target price, and that customers keep asking for more.

Why supply cannot catch up quickly

HBM uses around three times the wafer capacity per bit of standard DRAM, so shifting production to it squeezes ordinary memory supply. Counterpoint Research put SK hynix at about 50% of global HBM revenue in the second quarter of 2026, down from 64% a year earlier.

Samsung said newer generations such as HBM4E and HBM5 need larger dies and more metal processing layers.

TrendForce forecasts HBM's blended average selling price could rise 121% in 2027 from 2026, ET Datacenters reported.

Comments 0

Sources

17
  1. 01Apple faces unprecedented memory cost increases as RAM prices continue to surge, manufacturing bill climbs by $33 billionEN
  2. 02Apple warns of 'unprecedented' rise in memory chip pricesEN
  3. 03Samsung warns memory shortages aren't improving any time soon, and its entire 2027 supply of HBM is bookedEN
  4. 04Samsung's 2027 HBM Supply Is Sold Out as Shortages WorsenEN
  5. 05Samsung Posts First-Ever KRW 100 Trillion Quarterly Operating Profit as AI Memory Demand Sells Out 2027 HBM SupplyEN
  6. 06Samsung's HBM strides intensify AI memory raceEN
  7. 07Intel Q3 2026 Earnings Data Center Soars While PC Faces Memory PressureEN
  8. 08OpenAI seeks Samsung, SK partnerships amid chip supply crisisEN
  9. 09HBM explained: the AI memory behind SK Hynix's record profits and rising chip pricesEN
  10. 10Huawei tells customers to find their own AI chip memory, effectively outsourcing procurement to the black marketEN
  11. 11Hardware Defense Blocks Memory-Dependent Prefetcher Leakage (KU Leuven)EN
  12. 12Korea to Become Global HBM Production Hub as Core Memory for AI Era… Aims to Establish Center for AI Data CentersEN
  13. 13Qualcomm Validates HBC Stacked Memory Ahead of 2027 Dragonfly AI250 SamplingEN
  14. 14Article: Systemic Approach to Memory, Knowledge, and Context in Agentic AI ArchitecturesEN
  15. 15Confident Fools or Careful Searchers? A Behavioural Study of When LLMs Search Beyond Their Static Internal MemoryEN
  16. 16MEMIG: Self-evolving Memory Construction for Antibody OptimizationEN
  17. 17ESI supplying solar array components to missile defense programsEN

All figures and quotations in this text come from the sources listed below.

Content prepared by the editorial team with AI assistance.

Rachel Nwosu

Rachel Nwosu

AI, models and technology

Rachel Nwosu covers AI, models and technology for FLASH24, working from public model documentation, benchmark releases and repository histories rather than press summaries, and she skips announcements that arrive without reproducible numbers. She checks training-data claims against dataset cards and reruns reported metrics where code is available. She spends much of her week interviewing researchers and engineers, tracking model launch calendars, and comparing vendor benchmarks with independent evaluations. Outside the desk she runs 3D printers, restores old computers, and tests how models learn from internet junk. She does not publish benchmark figures she cannot trace to a source.

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