The Memory Squeeze Hits Demand: iPhone 18 Pro Orders Cut, PCs Down 20%

Note: This post was written by Claude Opus 5.5. The following is a synthesis of reporting from Nikkei Asia and Reuters, data from IDC, Omdia, TrendForce, and Counterpoint Research, and company filings.

For most of a year, the memory shortage showed up as higher price tags. On October 8 and 9 it showed up as fewer sales. Apple has told suppliers to cut production of parts for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, Nikkei Asia reported, because price increases forced by soaring memory costs have dampened demand. The day before, IDC said worldwide PC shipments fell 20.1 percent in the third quarter, and Omdia then put the drop at 21.2 percent. The increases IT departments were told to budget for have arrived, and customers are responding by purchasing less.

Apple’s order cut

Nikkei’s sources, several people familiar with the matter, said Apple has grown more conservative on shipments since early September and cut October component orders at least 15 percent below its original request. “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 supplier executive said. One source expects a similar fate for the $1,999 iPhone Duo, which opens for pre-orders October 16.

The Pros start at $1,199 and $1,299, $100 above last year’s models. When Apple raised iPad and MacBook prices in June, it blamed memory and storage costs driven by the AI data-center buildout.

Nikkei noted that some of the softness may reflect Apple’s new launch calendar, which moved the standard iPhone 18 to next spring, though its sources said the schedule alone does not account for it. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, and Apple had not responded to a request for comment. Counterpoint Research counted 12 percent year-over-year growth in the Pros’ first three days on sale in China, enough to give Apple 33 percent of that week’s smartphone sales. Its store checks across seven countries, though, found China and India growing while “most other markets softened,” and the firm expects shipments to trail the iPhone 17 Pro cycle, with a pricier model mix limiting the hit to revenue. That fits the mixed signals at launch.

Apple shares fell more than 2.5 percent in early trading on October 9 and closed down 1.1 percent at $336.64. Apple reports results on November 2; it stopped disclosing unit sales years ago, so revenue will be the number to watch.

PCs fall by a fifth

IDC’s preliminary count put third-quarter PC shipments at 62.7 million, down 20.1 percent from a year earlier. Omdia’s own count came to 58.1 million, with desktops off 23.5 percent and notebooks 20.6 percent. HP fell 30.9 percent in IDC’s tally, Dell 25 percent, and Lenovo 22.6 percent; Apple’s Macs dropped about 11 percent, a smaller decline Omdia credits to premium positioning.

Part of the drop is timing. Both firms say vendors and retailers stocked up in the first half to get ahead of price increases, borrowing volume from later in the year. But stockpiling no longer explains everything. “The impact of upstream component cost increases has now fully worked its way through to end-market pricing, with consumers and IT decision-makers responding accordingly,” said Ishan Dutt, a research director at Omdia, which forecasts a 24 percent year-over-year decline this quarter and a further 7 percent drop in 2027.

Why prices won’t fall far

TrendForce benchmarks a mainstream $900 notebook. In early 2025 its processor, memory, and storage made up about 45 percent of its parts cost; by the third quarter of this year, 68 percent. To keep its early-2025 margin, TrendForce estimates, a brand would have to raise that laptop’s price by about 80 percent. Omdia, counting memory and storage alone, finds their share of a PC’s cost has climbed from around 15 percent to nearly 40 percent. “Although PC vendors have raised prices multiple times over the past few quarters, these increases have yet to fully offset the impact,” said Ben Yeh, a principal analyst there, who warned that “the current decline may be just the beginning of a new downward cycle.”

The suppliers see no reason to relent. TrendForce expects contract prices for conventional DRAM to rise another 10 to 15 percent this quarter and NAND flash 15 to 20 percent. Micron reported $54.23 billion in revenue for the three months ended September 3, above its own $50 billion forecast and against $11.32 billion a year earlier, and expects $61.5 billion next. Stores clearing stock may offer brief relief: IDC’s Jitesh Ubrani expects promotions, “but we don’t expect pricing anywhere near what it was a year ago. Prices will remain elevated.”

What it means for a refresh

Buy from existing inventory while it lasts. TrendForce says stock bought at lower cost is cushioning retail prices; as it runs out, new machines will carry today’s component costs, so the promotions IDC expects may be the best deals for a while.
Read the spec sheet, not just the sticker. TrendForce lists cutting memory capacity among the ways brands may hold a price point, so a refreshed model that costs what last year’s did may ship with less RAM.
Watch for DDR4’s return. Gigabyte said on October 9 that new Intel processors for the LGA 1700 desktop socket, “expected to launch in early 2027,” will run on its existing B760 and H610 boards, DDR4 models included. Intel did not immediately comment. The Verge found a 32 GB DDR5 kit at $620 against $260 for its DDR4 counterpart.
Plan for longer lifecycles. TrendForce expects higher retail prices to stretch replacement cycles further, so budget for keeping current machines running past their planned retirement.

Apple’s November 2 report, and whether Omdia’s forecast for this quarter holds, will show how far customers are willing to go.

Apple’s order cut

PCs fall by a fifth

Why prices won’t fall far

What it means for a refresh

Sources

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