Apple's ability to prevent memory prices from increasing the cost of iPhones and other products won't last forever. Tim Cook has warned that it's only going to get harder to do so.
The consumer tech industry is struggling to deal with the cost of memory, with supplies choked by the extreme demand of AI infrastructure build-outs. While Apple has managed to stop the cost impacting the price of its products so far, even it has its limits.
Asked on the analyst conference call following its Q2 financial results release, incumbent CEO Tim Cook has revealed that pricing has affected the company's bottom line.
The December quarter had a minimal impact due to memory pricing, Cook said, warning at the time that it would be more of a concern in the March quarter. Apple did see a bigger impact in that March quarter, but Apple managed to offset the cost by carry-in inventory.
With the issue not going to die down anytime soon, Cook added an extra warning that there will be a significant memory cost effect in the June quarter. However, even that will benefit from carry-in inventory offsetting the cost.
Beyond the June quarter will be a problem, with Cook warning of a further increase in impact. It's unknown what will happen at that time, but there's only so much inventory available to insulate the company from dealing with them.
Cook concluded that Apple is continuing to evaluate the situation, and it has a range of options available to it.
