Apple will have to pay more for its iPhone and Mac chips from 2027 onwards, as long-term supply chain partner TSMC is upping its base prices by as much as 10%.

Apple is already trying to mitigate the memory market's pricing spikes to reduce its costs, but it's not the only component price problem on its hands. It faces having to pay TSMC even more for the all-important processors too.

According to Nikkei on Tuesday, TSMC will be increasing the base price of its chips from between 5% and 10%.

TSMC started to negotiate with clients in June and concluded them in July. The new pricing was agreed to come into force at the start of 2027, the report claims.

For TSMC, it is raising costs due to the cost of equipment, materials to make the chips, and for facilities expansion.

A spokesperson for the chip maker insisted that the pricing was "strategic, not opportunistic," referring to the memory price rises. TSMC will continue to work closely with clients and "sell our value to them," they added.

Ultimately, this will affect the cost of chips Apple will pay TSMC for. That could eventually be passed on to consumers in the form of price rises.

A chunky bump

The 5% to 10% base price increase will vary on a number of factors, including the customer and the type of chips being produced. All nodes are being hit by the increases, including both mature nodes at 12 nanometers and greater, and advanced nodes at 7 nanometers and smaller.

However, for consumers needing to place orders for more chips than they originally forecast to TSMC, they face an extra premium of between 10% and 15%. That means a TSMC customer faces possibly paying up to 25% more for chips if they make a mistake on their estimates, compared to current prices.

It is questionable how much Apple will be charged by TSMC for production. But, as a long-term and major client of TSMC, it should get closer to the 5% end of the base increase scale.

An expected increase

Apple and others in the tech industry have to deal with the price rises caused by the ongoing memory crisis. While Apple has held off on increasing the iPhone so far, that will change this fall.

On July 9, an estimate of the bill of materials for the iPhone 18 Pro Max forecast for the processor to cost roughly the same as that for the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but with other components significantly increasing.

With NAND and DRAM costing four times as much as in the previous model, it is believed that the iPhone 18 Pro Max will cost Apple just shy of $1,000 per unit to manufacture. That would be an increase in the BOM of about $300 over the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Apple has also apparently known about the potential price hikes for quite some time. In November 2025, a leaker claimed TSMC warned clients of a probable price hike for sub-5-nanometer fabrication of between 3% and 10%.

Evidently, the real price increases have a much larger reach than predicted.