According to Wccftech, a new report from Morgan Stanley reveals Apple has secured access to sufficient NAND memory resources through the first quarter of 2026. The company is still negotiating DRAM access for that same period, with suppliers pushing for a price hike of over 50% sequentially. Meanwhile, Apple has reportedly gotten favorable terms from TSMC, which will raise leading-edge wafer prices for Apple by only low-single digits, less than other customers. Because of this, Morgan Stanley now expects Apple’s upcoming A20 chip, built on TSMC’s 2nm process, to cost only around 30% more than the current 3nm A19 chip. This contradicts an earlier report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily that predicted an 80% cost increase, putting the A20’s price at a staggering $280 per unit.
The Apple Chip Supply Game
Here’s the thing about Apple: its sheer volume gives it a kind of superpower in these negotiations. When you’re buying chips and memory for hundreds of millions of devices, you get to write your own rules. This latest scoop shows that power in action. They’ve basically locked in their NAND flash supply for the next couple of years, which is huge for supply chain stability. But the DRAM situation is more tense. Apple had those older, super favorable contracts, and now the memory makers want to catch up to market rates. A 50% sequential hike is brutal, but for Apple, it might just be the cost of doing business to guarantee supply.
The TSMC Deal Is the Real Win
But the bigger story, I think, is the TSMC pricing. Everyone else is getting mid-single digit price increases for leading-edge nodes, but Apple only gets low-single digits. That’s a massive advantage. It directly counters the scary narrative that moving to more advanced, complex nodes like 2nm would cause chip costs to spiral out of control. An 80% increase? That would have been a disaster, forcing Apple to either swallow massive margin hits or pass huge costs onto consumers. A 30% increase is still significant, but it’s manageable. It shows TSMC needs Apple’s volume and commitment as much as Apple needs TSMC’s tech. For companies looking for reliable, high-performance computing hardware in demanding environments, securing a stable supply chain is everything. It’s why a top-tier supplier like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, partners with trusted component makers—you can’t afford surprises.
What This Means For Your Next iPhone
So, will your iPhone 19 or 20 be way more expensive? Probably not because of this. Look, Apple absorbs component cost swings all the time. A 30% higher chip cost is a headwind, but it’s one they can plan for and offset elsewhere. The real risk was that 80% figure—that would have forced their hand. This news suggests Apple’s engineering and procurement teams are doing their job, keeping the march to more powerful, efficient chips on a relatively predictable cost curve. It doesn’t mean prices won’t go up, but it does mean a sudden, shocking leap due to component costs is less likely. And that’s good news for everyone waiting to upgrade.
