Apple product prices in India to rise 15-20 per cent amid memory chip shortage - BusinessLine

Apple Inc announced a 15-20% price increase for its products in India, driven by unprecedented global memory chip shortages. The company cited the rapid expansion of AI data centers as the primary dri... Read original →

The insatiable demand from AI data centers for HBM and DRAM is pushing consumer electronics into a cost cliff. TSMC’s 3nm capacity—prioritized for NVIDIA’s AI chips—indirectly squeezes the supply elasticity of memory paired with Apple’s SoCs. India, lacking a closed-loop local supply chain and heavily reliant on imported memory modules, has become the most price-sensitive market. This price hike signals deeper structural imbalances: delayed EUV tool deliveries, export controls by the U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands, and surging AI capex have collectively stifled rapid expansion of mature-node memory capacity. Samsung and SK Hynix are reallocating output to high-margin AI memory, tightening eMMC/UFS availability and likely forcing Xiaomi and OPPO to follow Apple’s pricing move. Over the next 18 months, brands will accelerate adoption of LPDDR5X or in-house memory controllers—but this tech transition coincides with heightened geopolitical friction, putting true stress on supply chain resilience.