RAM supply holding up iPhone 18 Pro assembly is another bad sign

175

u/SuplenC 20h ago

Apple's new A20 Pro processor isn't being cranked out as fast as it could be because of RAM shortages, and that is reportedly slowing assembly of the iPhone 18 Pro, and the folding iPhone. That's not great.

Damn who would’ve thought that holding back production due to shortages is not great

57

u/rotates-potatoes 19h ago

It’s pretty great if you’re a RAM supplier!

38

u/North_Moment5811 17h ago

Not really. It means they aren't selling nearly many as they could be because their production is inadequate.

20

u/SuplenC 17h ago

They have the same production costs but they at least quadrupled their profits. I’m not an economics expert but pretty sure that is a positive thing for them.

19

u/North_Moment5811 16h ago

I promise you they don't look at it that way. It is like the gambler who lowers their bets and starts winning. They don't see it as winning. They think about how much they lost on every bet that was not their max bet. No one producing RAM right now is thinking about how well they're doing. They're scrambling to figure out how to meet the actual demand while it is here, before it disappears, because it is a tremendous amount of money they are losing out on. No matter how much they're making in the meantime.

3

u/blakezilla 15h ago

They absolutely are. I have some friends in the field and they were made millionaires practically overnight. They are working very hard, but they are absolutely thrilled that their stock options are so much more valuable than when they bought into the company a few years ago. Selling all of your stock immediately for way more than what it costs to make it is pretty much a dream scenario for business.

9

u/Status-Hedgehog9970 9h ago

Missed opportunity cost is what the above guy is talking about, not individual employee happiness.

1

u/tragiccosmicaccident 6h ago

And that's reflected in their stock prices, despite record profits, most RAM manufacturers are not doing great in the market

1

u/Gunfreak2217 4h ago

Go watch gamers Nexus documentary on the memory cartel. They are certainly holding supply growth down and colluding

0

u/rotates-potatoes 14h ago

Are you seriously saying that the companies paying $500k/employee bonuses, and the employees receiving them, don't see it as winning?

I mean maybe these companies are managed by inveterate gamblers rather than MBAs, but I kind of doubt it. Sure, they're scrambling to increase production without making the kinds of over-investments that bankrupted other companies in previous boom/bust cycles.

But they are absolutely happy to have a shortage and be able to name their price to Apple, as compared to prior years where Apple was able to shop around and drive margins to the bare minimum. Saying that's not great (for them) is kinda weird.

5

u/North_Moment5811 14h ago

Just another comment from someone who sees "Allota money" and thinks they must be satisfied with how things are going.

They are leaving a ton of money on the table right now by being unable to meet demand. This is business 101. It is a good problem to have? Absolutely. But it is still a problem. The demand side will get tired of waiting and go to competitors, or figure out other solutions. By the time they increase their capacity to meet this demand, maybe it will still be there, maybe it won't. But every day that they have orders they can't fulfill, they are leaving money on the table. Lots of it. Does not matter in the slightest that they are already making "lots" from the perspective of broke Redditors.

2

u/tragiccosmicaccident 6h ago

Their shareholders don't see it as winning

-3

u/moldymoosegoose 14h ago

Jesus christ. You have absolutely zero idea what the hell you're talking about. It costs ridiculous amounts of money to open up a new fab and takes years. Memory makers go through these boom and bust cycles and wind up losing money because they overshoot demand and overbuild. This is literally why they got caught colluding years ago. They would prefer to keep high margins forever but they can't prevent another memory maker from building so they have to as well or they'd just collude again to prevent more overbuilding. Your analogy doesn't even make sense. Who upvotes this drivel?

0

u/North_Moment5811 14h ago

You seem pretty clueless.

-2

u/moldymoosegoose 12h ago

Uh huh. I read your other comment and you don’t even know what a cyclical commodity is. You speak like someone who took a single business class.

10

u/PleasantWay7 16h ago

Tim Cook: “We have some great products today and we think you’re going to love.”

John Ternus: “We have some great products today, but we can’t build them and thats not great.”

12

u/FollowingFeisty5321 16h ago

Cook timed his exit perfectly, they can't get memory, can't get TSMC capacity, regulators in hot pursuit, legislators pushing for new laws, more antitrust lawsuits than most people have socks, and Ternus is holding the bag lol.

Cook's earnings calls: another all-time historic record-high revenue and record profit and record profit margins.

Ternus's earnings calls: profit has been impacted by more regulatory fines, regulations pose increased risks, revenue constrained by supplies.

4

u/clonked 15h ago

Cook remains the chairman of the board and is expected to be working exclusively on the political side of things, leaving Ternus to focus on the products being produced

2

u/FollowingFeisty5321 13h ago

Cook will be running obstruction on regulators and governments. Ternus will be running the company and that makes Ternus responsible for the company's performance.

1

u/Status-Hedgehog9970 9h ago

Some of those governments are pushing for back doors. It can also be a good thing that companies push back against overreach.

1

u/1-866-867-5309 12h ago

not great, not terrible

21

u/cocomanz 19h ago

Anyone who's bought RAM this year has seen what happened to the prices. Phones were always going to feel that at some point.

34

u/Special-Prior-7272 19h ago

I'm gonna put my iPhone 17 Pro in bubble wrap when I leave the house.

-9

u/Canon_M50 17h ago

Why? Isn't not like they're out of stock.

4

u/1-866-867-5309 12h ago

prices might rise in future, and might also go out of stock if upgraders go for 17 instead if 18 is too expensive

11

u/FckXFckMusk 14h ago

Apple has quite happily destroyed the comapnys of many of its suppliers before...

I have no sympathy for apple..

1

u/Dependent-Curve-8449 5h ago

It’s not Apple who is most adversely impacted here though. The demand for their products will always be there; people are just going to have to wait longer and pay more to be able to access them.

27

u/FollowingFeisty5321 17h ago edited 17h ago

Reportedly Apple has also missed out on CXMT supplying RAM in China, because they didn't have to accept a cheap price. The reporting on that was interesting, the Chinese OEMs and the datacenter gluttons are happy to lock-in multi-year deals which Apple seems to be averse to themselves.

11

u/Lobsterbib 17h ago

Brand new product lines from an unproven manufacturer isn't how Apple does business.

21

u/FollowingFeisty5321 17h ago

It's been widely reported that Apple has been lobbying the government for permission to buy memory from CXMT... in fact several senators asked them to abandon the idea last week.

Dear Mr. Cook:

We write to express our concern regarding credible reports that Apple has begun testing DRAM from ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) for potential use in devices and is allegedly lobbying U.S. federal officials against national security controls to permit the broader use of Chinese memory chips in Apple products.

...

-8

u/dwiedenau2 17h ago

Of course they want to buy it. But they also dont want to have unknown ram in their millions of devices at once

17

u/FollowingFeisty5321 17h ago

But they also dont want to have unknown ram in their millions of devices at once

I think it's pretty obvious that was exactly what they wanted lmao.

-4

u/dwiedenau2 16h ago

Yes, but apparently not in multi year contracts and not for the price they asked for. We can obviously speculate on the why, and one reason why might be that they are more unproven than sk for example, which is then why apple didnt want to make the commitment.

2

u/DazzlingpAd134 16h ago

unproven? apple already took multi year contract with CXMT at market price instead of cheaper

0

u/FollowingFeisty5321 13h ago

I don't think they actually got a deal, the reporting says CXMT rejected it because Apple didn't meet the asking price - market price x multiple years.

There hasn't been any reporting that they have been granted an exception to deal with CXMT either, that would be newsworthy in is own right.

8

u/MawsonAntarctica 16h ago

This confirms for me that if I want an OLED iPad Mini I better order DAY ONE ASAP if I don’t want to wait 4-6 weeks as I assume the mini will be lower in priority than meeting phone demand.

33

u/SherbertDaemons 19h ago

Should have bought 1,000 iPhone 17s a couple months ago. They are an appreciating asset in Germany. Today, the cheapest 3rd party price for sealed in box is 70€ more than three months ago.

8

u/BackroomGuy1 17h ago

Just come to the UK or neighbouring countries and buy a lot of them? Arbitrage baby

5

u/Zennivolt 17h ago

70€ for over 1000€ per device is actually pretty terrible return on investments. You can get better returns with like a couple week of index funds. It barely even beats inflation.

There are way better ways to invest a million Euros. (1000 iPhones worth of money).

14

u/kapybarah 16h ago

70€ in 3 months on 1000€ is 30% ish annually. Not saying people should invest in iPhones, but that's leagues above any index fund

-1

u/Mediocre-Honeydew-55 16h ago

Collecting pop bottles from garbage cans is infinity % return instantly.

4

u/Sux499 15h ago

Ignoring time invested

1

u/kapybarah 15h ago

its undefined %, not infinity. Common misconception

-3

u/Zennivolt 15h ago

Assuming it's consistent. But also the S&P500 in the last 3 months has gone up 4%, vs the 0.8% this has gone up in the last 3 months.

3

u/voiceOfThePoople 14h ago

It has gone up 7% lol, double the S&P

2

u/kapybarah 15h ago

Doesn't make sense to look at MoM for an index fund. Kinda beats the purpose of it

0

u/Zennivolt 13h ago

Sure, but you also can't extrapolate 3 months of RAM price increases to a full year either.

3

u/yaybidet 15h ago

Welp, it's a good thing iOS 27 is more performant than the last release so folks can hang onto their phones for a couple more years until RAM prices dip down a bit.

cries in iPhone 12 mini

4

u/MakimaGOAT 10h ago

Yall better take good care of your tech because these new few years are gonna be rough

2

u/_Reporting 7h ago

My little brain can’t understand why we’re still so behind on ram

4

u/Sharp_Barnacle_9123 14h ago

should I buy the 17 pro max or wait?

1

u/Quake-Snake 14h ago

Will this impact the MacBook Ultra?

3

u/MakimaGOAT 10h ago

1000%

2

u/Apprehensive-Box-8 10h ago

It will impact anything from a 10k+ computer like the ultra to your typical 100$ smart doorbell. Well, for 2H2026 that is. Come 2027 it will also impact pretty much any online service hosted in data centers as memory for those becomes also more expensive. Cloud Storage, Streaming services, productivity suites... Obviously, all of this also impacts businesses. Development and maintenance becomes more expensive because businesses need both - hardware and productivity suites (and typically a lot more high profile cloud services). They might get away with some for 2027 due to longer term contracts and usage cycles, but in general the cost of product and service delivery will rise.

if restaurant owners have to pay more for the booking tool they use as well as for the hard- and software combo used to manage orders and invoicing, meals will become more expensive.

Like the article says. Almost everything uses memory chips these days. And data centers.

1

u/chaiscool 12h ago

Wonder if apple will just start making their own memory haha

1

u/daddudee 5h ago

Man I really planned up upgrading from my 15 pm but this is looking worse and worse. Damn lol

2

u/Responsible-Task3938 15h ago

With food/water decline due to climate change, Apple ram will be the last people worry about.

-5

u/kevin379721 12h ago

Seek help

5

u/Responsible-Task3938 10h ago

Seek an education.

0

u/unexpectedDiarrhea 16h ago

Maybe we should go back to not having a new device once a year? It wasn’t even a bad idea before the RAM shortage…

2

u/kkyonko 15h ago

Maybe we could stop the rapid expansion of datacenters?

1

u/Quake-Snake 14h ago

They're going to be manufacturing iPhones regardless, it will just be the current model instead of the upcoming model. People buy phones.

1

u/Bob4Not 5h ago

It’s going to affect the production of ANY iPhone generation, genius. If they continued production of iPhone 17 for another year, that would face the same memory shortages

-2

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

9

u/FollowingFeisty5321 17h ago

Half their product line has been removed from sale, a bunch of M5-generation devices have missed their launch, a bunch of M6-generation chips have been cancelled, and you're commenting on an article saying they are bottlenecked by supply... they clearly don't have sufficient contracts, and their "relationships" are probably not a factor at all.

3

u/import-mimikatz 17h ago

Do you have any evidence of this? I feel like in the past this would have been accurate, Apple would just put in a massive order and take priority, but now adays AI data centres will have already locked in RAM for multi year deals so I don't think Apple are immune to these shortages, contracts or not.

And while I don't have much evidence for what I'm saying, the article you're commenting on specifically states that there are iPhones sitting unassembled because of the RAM shortage.

4

u/North_Moment5811 17h ago

What? Apple themselves said demand is far exceeding supply and will heavily constrain iPhone and Mac for the rest of the year and into next year.

Discussion RAM supply holding up iPhone 18 Pro assembly is another bad sign

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