Apple's memory supply woes are going to continue, as suppliers have already sold their entire production capacity of memory at high prices for all of 2027. Expect iPhone upgrades to cost more this year, and next.

The tech industry's ongoing nightmare of memory pricing is expected to be a long-term problem. It seems that it will still be an issue until the end of 2027 at a minimum.

According to industry insider sources of DigiTimes on Tuesday, the three major producers of DRAM and HBM have already sold out their production capacity for the entirety of 2027. Furthermore, while supply of NAND Flash SSD media is a little less tight, it's still expected to be fully booked before the end of August.

On a manufacturer basis, Samsung Electronics, Micron, and SanDisk have sold out of NAND production capacity for the year. Kioxia and SK Hynix are expected to confirm contracts by the end of August 2026.

All of the buyers have also agreed to the advance payment deposit model. Regardless of whether or not multi-year long-term agreements already exist.

The situation can also get worse for the industry as a whole. The sources say that some memory purchasers may not be aware that July and August are the main months for acquiring capacity from the suppliers.

That lack of awareness is apparently caused by people in the industry being afraid that too many people will step in to try and secure capacity during the period. That would increase demand and potentially leave clients with less capacity than if the industry stayed quiet.

Some sources say that 2027 will be the most severe period for memory storage.

A continued capacity shortfall

The memory crisis came about due to the increased demands of cloud service providers, building out data centers and the capacity for AI processing. This push for cloud computing infrastructure meant there was a greater need for hardware, including memory.

However, memory production capacity hasn't increased at the same rate as the demand for memory. Building new production facilities takes a considerable amount of time, prolonging the crisis.

In 2026, memory suppliers were willing to hand over existing capacity to cloud infrastructure buildouts because they were willing to pay a lot more for the components. This put the squeeze on smaller clients and consumer-oriented producers.

The report says that demand is so bad in 2026 that some hyperscalers are "begging" for supplies. This led to memory producers arranging for 2027 capacity to be blocked out in advance, with a preference towards major customers.

With cloud service providers and AI companies also prioritized for 2027's capacity, the memory quota for smartphone producers and PC manufacturers will be smaller. It will be harder and vastly more expensive to get memory chips for phones and computers in 2027 than in 2026, given the focus on RAM for server farms.

Prices are going to go up even more

The report is an industry-wide one, and therefore it affects Apple too. The Cupertino tech giant is well aware of the global memory crisis, and will have been trying to secure capacity alongside everyone else.

Apple is one of the major clients of memory suppliers who provide products to consumers, and it certainly will have secured some level of capacity. The sticking points will be if it managed to get enough for its needs, and how much of a premium will apply.

The iPhone maker benefits from long-term contracts in its supply chain in general. Memory has been a problem, just as it has been for everyone else.

This problem has led to Apple considering other options, including trying to convince the U.S. government to allow it to buy memory from blacklisted suppliers. With the severe price increases in play, this is a viable tactic for Apple to follow, even with the potential political blowback.

Apple already has raised its prices for many products due to the existing increases, and it will almost certainly be doing the same for the fall iPhone launches. With limited capacity continuing into 2027, you can expect prices for consumers to go up even more before things get better.