TrendForce says 20 per cent increase is “moderate”, with memory costs for 256-gigabyte iPhone 18 Pro model up nearly 400 per cent in a year.

I earlier estimated that Apple would sell gazillions of MacBook Neo machines. TrendForce is now out with a slightly more formal estimate of four to five million units this year. The market intelligence company also notes that Apple is headed in the opposite direction to most of its competitors … more…

Market researcher TrendForce said on Monday that it has raised its chip price forecasts and expects conventional DRAM contract prices to jump by 90% to 95% in the January to March period of this year, from the final three months of 2025, citing the artificial intelligence boom.

Apple is expected to offer both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max with a minimum of 256GB storage, doing away with the 128GB starting option on its smaller Pro model for the first time, according to a new TrendForce report. Currently, Apple's…

A new market intelligence report suggests that Apple will be paying four times more for iPhone 18 Pro memory than it did for last year’s model. TrendForce says that Apple won’t be passing on the full impact to customers, and will be increasingly looking to Services revenue to offset higher hardware manufacturing costs … more…

We're not seeing much evidence of cheaper DDR5 kits, ourselves.

Apple’s Vision Pro strategy of launching a very high-end professional product first, and a more affordable consumer version second, is likely to prove successful in the long-run, predicts market intelligence company TrendForce. The company says that…

Apple's first foldable iPhone will be equipped with a 7.8-inch inner display, and a 5.5-inch outer display, according to Taiwanese research firm TrendForce. Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo already mentioned those same display sizes for the foldable iPhone in March, meaning there are now multiple sources backing those sizes, so long as TrendForce is not simply copying what Kuo said. Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7 has an 8-inch inner screen, and a 6.5-inch outer screen. TrendForce said Apple will likely launch the foldable iPhone in the second half of 2026, so the device could debut in September of next year. Last week, Kuo said the foldable iPhone (and Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8) will feature a "crease-free" inner display. He said Apple will achieve this feat by using a laser-drilled metal display plate, which can disperse the stress generated by bending. Kuo expects the foldable iPhone to have two rear cameras, one front camera, and a Touch ID power button instead of Face ID.Tags: Foldable iPhone, TrendForce This article, "Foldable iPhone's Display Sizes Leaked" first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums

apple iphone 18 pro iPhone 18 Pro BOM Cost Expected to Surge Nearly 40%, Leaving Apple to Sacrifice Margins to Sustain Shipments, Says TrendForce

A new report from TrendForce claims Apple's iPhone production surged 19.7% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026, even as the broader global smartphone market contracted 1.7% over the same period. According to TrendForce, Apple produced approximately 60.2 million iPhone units in the first quarter, placing it second among global smartphone brands. Samsung retained the top spot with approximately 62.6 million units, a 2.3% year-over-year increase. TrendForce attributes Apple's strong output partly to the launch of the iPhone 17e, in addition to ongoing production ramp-up for the broader iPhone 17 lineup. The figures reflect Apple's relative resilience in a market increasingly burdened by rising memory component costs. TrendForce says Apple is better positioned than most competitors to absorb those higher costs without sacrificing profitability, and suggests the company is more likely to prioritize market share growth during the current downturn as it lays the groundwork for its expanding software and services business. Apple is one of the few major smartphone brands that has not raised prices in response to the memory price surge. The picture is considerably grimmer elsewhere. Chinese brands Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo ranked third through fifth globally with 29.5 million, 26 million, and 22 million units respectively, with TrendForce warning that all three face significant uncertainty around their 2026 production plans as surging memory costs weigh on profitability. Transsion, which ranked sixth at approximately 19.8 million units, is said to be particularly exposed given its heavy concentration in entry-level and budget segments where margins are already thin. Looking ahead, TrendForce forecasts global smartphone production will decline approximately 16.2% year-over-year to 1.051 billion units across 2026. The firm warns that figure could worsen if memory prices remain elevated and brands are forced to pass costs on to consumers through repeated retail price increases.Tag: TrendForce This article, "Apple Bucks Smartphone Slump With Production Surge" first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums

Apple's iPhone 18 Pro will cost nearly 40 percent more to build than its predecessor because of soaring memory prices, according to new data analyzed TrendForce. The research firm's latest smartphone analysis puts the bill of materials for the 256GB iPhone 18 Pro roughly 38 percent above the equivalent iPhone 17 Pro, and says higher retail prices will be unavoidable as a result. Memory is said to have accounted for about 10 percent of the 256GB iPhone Pro's total component cost a year ago. TrendForce estimates that figure at roughly 34 percent in the third quarter of 2026, rising past 40 percent in the first half of 2027. Panel and application processor costs, once the two biggest line items, drop to single-digit percentages by that point, given memory has taken up so much of the overall cost. TrendForce expects Apple to take the same approach it used with recent MacBook launches by giving up part of its gross margin to keep the increase palatable with customers and protect shipment volumes. It also suggests Apple could raise prices on older iPhone models at the same time as the new lineup arrives, thereby spreading the cost recovery across the range. TrendForce notes that memory prices have climbed five- to sevenfold since the start of 2025, and expects Android vendors in the entry-level and mid-range segments to raise prices more steeply than Apple. That, or they could drop product lines outright. Apple raised prices across the Mac, iPad, Apple TV, HomePod, and Vision Pro lines in June over concerns about the same memory crunch. The iPhone lineup escaped that round, but it looks increasingly unlikely that it will escape the next one. Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and its first foldable iPhone "Ultra" next month.Related Roundup: iPhone 18 ProTag: TrendForce This article, "iPhone 18 Pro Costing Apple 38% More to Make, TrendForce Estimates" first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums

TrendForce’s latest investigations have revealed that the recent release of DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 underscores an industry-wide shift toward more cost-effective AI infrastructure. This developmen...

TrendForce says DDR5 RAM prices will soon result in reduced memory for default laptop configurations across the board...and higher prices, too.

Apple has encouraged its display panel suppliers to scale up their investments in laptop-sized OLED displays, Taiwanese research firm TrendForce said in a press release this week. This revelation comes as Apple prepares to launch its first MacBook Pro…

TrendForce has revised its 2026 notebook shipment forecast downward, with Apple standing out as the exception. Here are the details. more…

A new TrendForce report shows that Apple saw a 14% year-over-year increase in smartphone production during Q2 2026, reaching a 19% share of global production, second only to Samsung. Here are the details. more…

Apple and Samsung produced nearly the same number of smartphones in 2025, tying for the top position in global smartphone production, according to a new report from TrendForce. Global smartphone production reached approximately 1.254 billion units in 2025, rising 2.5% year over year. The research firm says Apple and Samsung each produced nearly 240 million smartphones during the year, tying for the top position in global production. TrendForce says the smartphone market in the first half of 2025 benefited from China's government subsidy programs, which stimulated demand, while the second half of the year was supported by the traditional seasonal peak driven by new flagship smartphone launches. Apple's production increased significantly toward the end of the year following the launch of the iPhone 17 lineup. TrendForce said Apple's smartphone production rose more than 50% quarter over quarter in the fourth quarter of 2025, supported by strong shipments of the company's latest iPhone models. The report adds that the ‌iPhone 17‌ series benefited from well-positioned retail pricing, which helped drive strong market performance. TrendForce suggests that if Apple adopts a more aggressive pricing strategy in 2026, it could help sustain both production and sales momentum. Looking ahead, the broader smartphone industry is expected to face mounting cost pressures. TrendForce says surging memory prices are likely to significantly increase smartphone production costs in 2026. As a result, global smartphone output is projected to decline by at least 10% year over year to around 1.135 billion units. According to the firm, smartphone manufacturers will face a difficult choice between raising retail prices to preserve margins or lowering device specifications to maintain shipment volumes, with the entry-level segment expected to be most affected by rising component costs. Beyond Apple and Samsung, several other manufacturers ranked among the largest producers in 2025. Xiaomi (including Redmi and POCO) ranked third with production close to 170 million units, followed by OPPO (including OnePlus and Realme) with 143 million units. Vivo placed fifth, while Transsion (the company behind TECNO, Infinix, and itel) ranked sixth after sharply cutting production late in the year due to inventory adjustments and demand concerns in emerging markets. Honor ranked seventh after accelerating production toward the end of 2025, while Lenovo (including Motorola) ranked eighth with roughly 61 million smartphones produced during the year.Tags: Samsung, TrendForce This article, "Apple Ties Samsung as Top Smartphone Maker in 2025" first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums

Demand for electricity could be almost three times what the grid can deliver, though problems may not bite until 2028

Demand for electricity could be almost three times what the grid can deliver, though problems may not bite until 2028

TrendForce’s latest forecast estimates that shipments of foldable phones will reach 19.8 million units in 2025, maintaining a market penetration rate of around 1.6%, on par with 2024. Although growth ...