Apple has told some suppliers to reduce production of components for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, with October orders running at least 15% below what the company originally requested, according to Nikkei Asia. The cut lands roughly three weeks after the phones went on sale and points to demand softening exactly where Apple raised prices the most.
The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the Pro Max at $1,299, each $100 above the iPhone 17 Pro models they replaced. Apple unveiled the phones on September 9 and started selling them on September 18. Since early September, the report says, the company has grown more cautious about shipments, and demand has run softer than expected from late August into October. Apple shares fell about 2.5% in US trading on the news, one of the sharper single-day moves the stock has had this quarter.
“In October alone, we are seeing orders from Apple reducing by 15% to 20% for both the premium models; we don’t know how things would develop from here,” one executive-level source told Nikkei. Suppliers pointed to price as the main cause. Apple did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
The memory shortage behind the price hike
The price increases trace back to a global memory-chip shortage driven by the AI buildout. Tech giants racing to construct AI data centers have been absorbing a growing share of the world’s DRAM and NAND supply, leaving less for phones, laptops and other consumer electronics. JP Morgan research estimates DRAM prices will have risen more than 400% from the start of 2024 through the end of 2026, a rate of increase memory maker Micron has called unprecedented in the industry’s modern history.
Apple has already passed some of that cost on. In June it raised prices on Macs and iPads, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage costs. On his final earnings call as CEO in July, Tim Cook described memory pricing as a “100-year flood.” The iPhone increases landed in September, and the early read on them is now negative, which is the data point suppliers are reacting to when they confirm the October cuts.
The cut also reflects Apple’s own scheduling. Nikkei notes that part of the softer demand could relate to the company’s changed launch cadence for iPhone models, which shifted expectations around upgrade timing and left some purchase decisions in limbo between cycles. But the scale of the order reduction, and the fact that both premium models are affected rather than one, suggests price sensitivity is doing most of the work. Cheaper models in the lineup have not been reported as trimmed.
A squeeze that starts in the data center
The mechanics are straightforward. An AI training cluster consumes hundreds of thousands of high-bandwidth memory chips. Hyperscalers sign multi-year commitments for that memory at prices far above what a phone maker will pay, and chipmakers allocate capacity accordingly. Consumer electronics makers sit lower on the priority list and pay the difference through spot pricing and contract escalators.
The result is visible across the industry, not just at Apple. PC and smartphone shipments have faced headwinds all year as component costs climbed, and several Android makers have raised prices on their own flagship models in recent months. Memory modules for desktop builders have seen some of the steepest jumps on record, with knee-jerk retail moves reported on some kits. The difference is that Apple raised prices on its most visible product and then had to walk orders back, which makes this story a market signal as much as a supply-chain anecdote.
For component suppliers, the cut hits hardest in October. Contract manufacturers order memory, display panels and application processors months ahead, and cancellations or deferrals flow directly into their order books. The suppliers quoted by Nikkei did not disclose which component categories are being trimmed, but the report specifies that the reductions cover both Pro models rather than the standard iPhone 18 lineup, which continues unaffected so far.
What to watch next
Apple’s December quarter guidance will be the real test. The company typically builds iPhone revenue forecasts on early-cycle demand data, and a 15% order cut six weeks into the sales cycle is the kind of signal that forces a revised forecast. When Apple reports, analysts will look for whether management blames price, supply constraints or the later upgrade cycle timing for the softer Pro demand, and whether the company commits to holding the higher price levels in place.
Longer term, the question is whether memory prices ease in 2027 or keep climbing with AI demand. Most forecasts assume elevated prices through at least next year, which would make the iPhone 19 a design problem as much as a marketing one: either Apple absorbs more of the cost in its margins or stretches prices further, and each option carries a demand risk the company has now seen up close once. Suppliers are already planning 2027 capacity on the assumption AI demand keeps improving their pricing power.
There is also a consumer read. A $100 increase is modest by the standards of recent component inflation, yet it appears to have been enough to slow orders on the two most expensive models in the lineup. If that holds through the holiday quarter, expect the industry’s response to premium pricing to become considerably more careful in 2027, with more tiered storage pricing and fewer headline price jumps.