Samsung, “asked for the moon” when negotiating with Apple about RAM price increases due to ridiculous worldwide demand.
Tim Hardwick from MacRumors:
According to the report's sources, Apple recently held emergency meetings with Samsung's semiconductor division to negotiate delivery volumes of RAM for the first half of this year. The 12GB LPDDR5X modules used in the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro have already roughly doubled in price since early 2025, rising from around $30 to approximately $70.
Samsung is said to have originally planned to push for a 60% price increase on LPDDR5X modules supplied to Apple. Instead, however, Samsung opened with a 100% markup as a negotiating tactic – and Apple apparently accepted it on the spot.
If the publication's industry sources are accurate, Apple's immediate acceptance just goes to show how desperate smartphone makers have become to lock down memory supply. Chipmakers like SK Hynix and Micron have been redirecting production capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI servers, and that has left mobile DRAM in extremely short supply.
Either Apple was desperate, or they already had a stupid good deal due to shrewd negotiations.
Probably both.
Looks like Samsung also played Tim Cook’s card when it comes to negotiations by asking for a 100% price markup instead of 60%. Patrick McGee from his book, “Apple In China”:
Cook was fond of teaching colleagues to “be aggressive and unreasonable” when negotiating with suppliers. Max Paley, a vice president of graphics at the time, recalls not really knowing what this meant. Cook would say in a calm, deliberative cadence: “Don’t... ever... be ... afraid ... to ... be ... unreasonable.” What did that mean? Was Cook saying to be a jerk? Paley wasn’t sure, but he later grew to understand and respect it. “What he was really saying was that it’s a typical thing for people—even in business negotiations with a supplier—to try to figure out: What’s a reasonable thing to ask them? What are they likely to be able to do?” Paley says. “Whereas he was kinda saying, ‘You have no clue! You have no idea what the supplier might actually be capable of. So don’t be afraid to ask for the moon. Ask for everything you want. Ask for everything you need. If they can’t do it, they’ll say no.’”