How Apple may be the 'only odd one out' in a market where all smartphone companies are increasing prices

Apple has emerged as the only big consumer tech company that has held steady on its iPhone 17 pricing despite its competitors like Samsung and Xiaomi who have either hinted or announced price hike of their products as global memory shortage is crippling the industry. At the CES 2026, world’s leading hardware manufacturers warned of “inevitable” price hikes, owing to shortage in consumer memory hardware.According to a report by the Financial Times, industry leaders from Arm, Qualcomm and Samsung issued a warning this week, stating that the race to build AI infrastructure has dented the supply of memory chips for consumer-centric products. They suggested that this ‘crunch’ is expected to force most tech companies to raise consumer prices throughout the first half of 2026.While Arm CEO Rene Hass said the constraints on memory chips were “the most severe I have seen in at least two decades”, Samsung co-CEO TM Roh pointed out that the shortage was “unprecedented” and would have an “inevitable” impact on consumers.Meanwhile, Qualcomm chief financial officer Akash Palkhiwala noted that the memory chip crunch was “pretty dramatic, [and] what’s driving the shortfall is the data centre deployments by five or six companies in the world with an incredible amount of capex”.According to International Data Corporation (IDC), Apple’s ability to defy the market trend stems from its unique supply chain strategy. Apple, and Samsung, traditionally strike long-term agreements to lock in component pricing up to two years in advance. However, while Samsung is currently benefiting from the high sell-side prices of its own chips, Apple is using its locked-in contracts to shield its customers from the price hike. Apple did not increase the price of iPhone 17 series.Tech giants like Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI have committed billions in expanding AI data centers, which require vast amounts of High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM). This has drive memory shortage globally, prompting suppliers like Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron to shift their manufacturing resources away from consumer market.