Apple May Have Just Made Samsung’s Next Price Hike Much Easier

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Nobody likes paying more for the same thing. Yet, that’s increasingly becoming the reality across the consumer electronics industry. Apple recently became the first major smartphone vendor to publicly acknowledge what many companies have been quietly dealing with for months: rising component prices. Samsung could soon follow suit.

Apple said the quiet part out loud and made it easier for Samsung

A few days ago, Apple increased prices across several Macs, iPads, Apple TV models, and HomePod speakers. Some configurations became as much as $300 more expensive. But this isn’t really an Apple story. It’s not even a Samsung story. It’s the story of an industry caught in the middle of an unprecedented memory shortage driven by AI.

Unlike many companies that quietly adjust prices and hope nobody notices, including Samsung, Apple openly explained why it was happening. CEO Tim Cook pointed to unavoidable market conditions and rising component costs, essentially admitting that the era of stable gadget pricing is over. The company hasn’t touched iPhone prices yet, but it also made it clear that these increases may not stop here.

That matters far beyond Apple’s own products.

In fact, Samsung has already tested the waters. Earlier this year, the company quietly increased prices for several Galaxy products. The Galaxy Z Flip 7, Tab S11 Ultra, and many other devices became more expensive months after launch. There was no announcement. No executive explained market conditions. The prices simply changed.

Samsung had to do it because it was under pressure to save margins. The company risked being undercut by competitors. If Samsung increased Galaxy prices while Apple held the line, Samsung would have been forced to justify why its devices suddenly became more expensive. Now that Apple has publicly accepted higher pricing, that pressure largely disappears.

Consumers have now heard the explanation from one of the world’s biggest technology companies: components cost more, memory costs significantly more, and somebody has to pay the bill. That gives Samsung considerably more room to make similar decisions without appearing to be acting alone.

AI is making your next phone more expensive

The uncomfortable reality is that neither Apple nor Samsung created this problem. The explosion of AI has fundamentally changed the memory market. Companies building AI infrastructure are now buying enormous quantities of advanced DRAM and high-bandwidth memory, becoming far more valuable customers for suppliers than smartphone manufacturers.

As a result, conventional DRAM contract prices have almost doubled this year, while LPDDR memory prices have surged dramatically. Suppliers naturally prioritize customers willing to pay the highest prices, leaving smartphone makers competing for increasingly expensive components.

Every flagship Galaxy phone, tablet, laptop, smartwatch, and foldable depends on those same memory chips. And there is simply no easy way around it.

The timing couldn’t be worse

Samsung’s next Galaxy Unpacked event is expected to introduce the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Flip 8, new Galaxy Watch models, and possibly even its first smart glasses. These products are arriving at perhaps the most expensive moment for smartphone manufacturing in years.

While recent leaks suggest Samsung is improving hardware in meaningful ways, including larger batteries, faster charging, and brighter displays, those upgrades also come with higher production costs on top of soaring memory prices. Keeping prices unchanged may simply no longer be realistic.

The company still has tools to soften the blow. It can continue offering generous trade-in values, bundle accessories, increase instant discounts, or keep entry-level storage prices unchanged while charging more for higher-capacity models.

But if Apple eventually raises iPhone prices as many expect, the industry’s last major pricing anchor disappears. At that point, Samsung won’t have to worry about being the first company asking customers to pay more. The unfortunate reality is that consumers may have only two options: hold onto their current devices for longer or accept that the AI boom powering tomorrow’s technology is also making today’s gadgets significantly more expensive.

Whether we like it or not, Apple’s latest move may have opened the floodgates, and Samsung could be one of the next companies to walk through them.

Written by

Sumit Adhikari

Sumit, a life-long Samsung user, is passionate about technology and has been professionally writing on tech since 2017. He’s a mathematics graduate by education and enjoys teaching basic mathematics tricks to school kids in his spare time. Sumit believes in artificial intelligence and dreams of a fully open, intelligent and connected world.

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