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Not my field at all, but is there anything to stop Apple setting up its own chip foundry themselves? Surely money isn't an issue. Would it be skilled labour preventing that idea?
No. Apple is not trying to spend that kind of money actually nobody is that's why everyone goes to Intel and TMC and AMD
 
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Late last month, DigiTimes reported that these price rises could hit sooner than expected, with the iPhone 13 lineup being more expensive due to increased chip costs. Even so, it appears that the effect of increased chip prices will not fully impact Apple until next year.
Does anyone think Apple will keep down prices on todays products because TSMC or others will increase prices in the near future? No, they do like gasoline companies do. They price their products on the cost to replace parts they have now, which means in the near future.
 
You help build up a company like TSMC with exclusivity on massive orders, and of course they will eventually take their profits and lead and run with it. As difficult as it may be, it would probably have been a good idea to continue to diversify with Samsung and others to make sure there would be options. Obviously, massive orders and a deep pocket happily paying customer help cover R&D costs.
 
If prices do rise on already expensive product it starts to become out of reach for a lot of customers. You will find more and more people not upgrading on a yearly basis and keeping their existing products for much longer.

I want to upgrade my iPhone this year from an iPhone XS Max which I haven't upgraded for the last two year because of the cost of the phone and didn't really think there was much difference in the last two phones. But now being three years old it would be good to change, but if it becomes more expensive due to chip shortage I'll have to think twice, especially as production costs for the next iPhone will already be in place and the increase in chip costs is coming later in the year.
Me too, especially considering I’m not really using iPhone that much since I got iPad. The best option for me is replacing its battery and that’s it. Unless next iPhone (released in 2022) removes charging port, there is no compelling reason for me to upgrade really.
 
It's time for the US companies to band together and bring the manufacturing home, or pay TSMC's rising prices.
Will take 5 years minimum. Good luck with that. Those machines ain’t come in a vacuum.
Die hard Apple guys don't care anyway, +300$ on all devices, all fine, the winner takes it all \o/.
No, no, no. They are fine even if the price increase is $3000 or more ridiculous $30000. Their purchase power is UNLIMITED! 🤪🤣
 
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I agree to a certain extent, but lets see how much prices will increase. So, if components in a phone on the average increase lets say by 64 dollars, I doubt we would see a 64 dollar price increase on the phone. We would rather end up with a 100 dollar price increase - a net price increase by Apple.
Why in the world would you think that Apple should only raise the prices by the price hike of the chip? That's ridiculous! I hope you understand that despite a possible price hike by Apple there is STILL a chip shortage? Prices tend to get raised because if inventory is limited companies have to have some control or they will quickly run out of product. That's happening everywhere. Due to the current situation it's not logical for any company to raise their prices based ONLY on the amount that was increased by the parts they use. It's called inventory control. That's exactly what the chip manufacturer is doing by raising the price, inventory control. Come on man!
 
No no no. That's where you're wrong. You're only looking at Apple from a personal standpoint, not business. You're forgetting they are publicly-traded company so they have shareholders to appease to, not just customers. If a company purposely takes a profit loss their stocks will tank from investors dumping shares. It's not as cut n' dry as you're making out to be. Think about yourself being the CEO running a 2 trillion dollar valuation company and see if you would just simply take profit losses to "be nice" to customers. The board would vote you off.

But I am consumer, I don’t care how much Apple will loss. I do care my wallet. iPhone is already god forbid expensive. I can hardly justify spending 1000+ on iPhone 12.

By the way, increasing in chip cost doesn’t translate visible price increase. As far as I know, it cost less than 100 dollar to manufacture A series chip. 20% increase will max increase cost for 20 dollars. How will this translate over 100 dollars increase?

Apple could easily sallow the cost and hope for increase in sales to offset increase in cost.
 
Why in the world would you think that Apple should only raise the prices by the price hike of the chip? That's ridiculous! I hope you understand that despite a possible price hike by Apple there is STILL a chip shortage? Prices tend to get raised because if inventory is limited companies have to have some control or they will quickly run out of product. That's happening everywhere. Due to the current situation it's not logical for any company to raise their prices based ONLY on the amount that was increased by the parts they use. It's called inventory control. That's exactly what the chip manufacturer is doing by raising the price, inventory control. Come on man!

Again. Why should I as consumer pay for net price increase? Come on, man. You seriously think trillion dollar company can’t weather temporary cost increase?

How far do you think price increase would be ridiculous?
 
Wouldn't apple have contracts with their suppliers, how can they just raise prices?
They don’t, one, as you said, there are contracts in place.
Second, TSMC and other fabs expect a rather accurate forecast from their customers so that they (the fabs) can plan for a year or longer, when you “suddenly” raise prices, those forecasts might become invalid and as such your own planning gets screwed up.
TSMC definitely will raise prices for new nodes, eg 3nm. New equipment, high demand and they will set a new price.
But, what most don’t understand, COVID ha impacted everything piece in the supply chain, right now substrates are impacted. That’s either a raw (unprocessed) wafer or the material that chips get assembled onto. Those in particular are way back ordered right now and hence demand higher prices.
I remember from 7 or 8 years ago that lead times for substrates went from 4-6 weeks to 6-9 months…
 
Fluctuating commodity prices is nothing new. Apple already negotiated and booked capacities or pre-purchased components in bulk many moons ago. Apple's more vertical integration should be more immune to these fluctuations. Price increase will happen, but that's mostly to pad Apple's margin. If Apple caught off guard in these price fluctuations, Tim Cook should resign since he is supposed to be the supply chain master.

The price "increases" are already seen with PC laptops. Many components makers starting to nerf their products (single channel RAM, SSD with slower controllers, etc), many even while still carrying the same branding, thus misleading consumers. Many Windows laptop OEMs now only give you 8GB if RAM for the price compared to previous years when you could get 16GB. Basically you're getting less for the same price nowadays.
 
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Meh!😒 of course a price increase.
wanted a new laptop but if prices go up a heap I’ll wait.
 
It's interesting how people here are threatening to leave the Apple ecosystem over a speculative price increase. The BOM cost of the silicon is only a fraction of the ASP and any potential TSMC price adjustment, if at all, is a fraction of that BOM cost. Any price adjustment would be a fraction of the increased TSMC cost as vendors usually do not pass the full amount of price increases to the customer. Instead they find alternative savings in countless other ways. You may have experienced "shrinkflation" at the restaurant or store recently. Regardless, no sane person changes an entire ecosystem over a price adjustment unless they were already unhappy for other reasons. Apple products are not a commodity so price is not the primary selling point.
 
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It's interesting how people here are threatening to leave the Apple ecosystem over a speculative price increase.

People who can’t afford apple products and haven’t bought one in years are constantly here just to tell us the latest reason why *now* they are done with apple products. CSAM, apple donating to a cause they don’t like, Tim Cook being a different human than Steve Jobs, Apple not bending over for Epic, an outside lawyer writing a letter to a trademark infringer, price is unfair, whatever. Any excuse is good enough to make one feel better about oneself.
 
People who can’t afford apple products and haven’t bought one in years are constantly here just to tell us the latest reason why *now* they are done with apple products. CSAM, apple donating to a cause they don’t like, Tim Cook being a different human than Steve Jobs, Apple not bending over for Epic, an outside lawyer writing a letter to a trademark infringer, price is unfair, whatever. Any excuse is good enough to make one feel better about oneself.
Even for people who are Apple customers some are incapable of distinguishing between price and value. Forums are filled with angry complaints when there's a $50 price increase on a $2000+ MBP, a vertical product that people might depend on every day for their work. A product which costs many millions in R&D and countless hours of hard effort by thousands of HW, SW, mechanical engineers and supporting talent. Yet they don't think twice about spending $40 on some cheap plastic phone case that costs $0.10 to manufacture in China with near zero R&D.
 
im tapping out this year! looking for a phone I can install linux on! big brother getting to creepy
 
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