Apple Cut iPhone 18 Pro Orders After Its $100 Price Hikes

Apple raised the price of its best iPhones by $100 — and less than a month later, told suppliers to start cutting production. The culprit, according to the report, is the same force driving the price hikes in the first place: the AI industry's bottomless appetite for memory chips.

Nikkei Asia reported on Friday that Apple has asked some suppliers to cut October component orders for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max by at least 15%, after the price increases dampened demand. Reuters relayed the report — while noting, honestly, that it "could not immediately verify" it, since the Nikkei original sits behind a paywall and names no suppliers.

Read that again: the most valuable company on Earth is cutting production of its flagship product because the AI boom made the parts too expensive, and then it made the phone too expensive, and now fewer people want it. There is a word for this kind of circular damage. It is called a feedback loop, and Apple is caught in one of its own industry's making.

Photo: John Ternus, who became Apple's chief executive on September 1, 2026, at the company's 50th anniversary kickoff. The iPhone 18 Pro order cuts are the first demand wobble of his tenure. CC BY 4.0 photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The cuts: at least 15%, and "more conservative since early September"

The details, via Nikkei's supply-chain sources as relayed by Reuters and 9to5Mac: October component orders were slashed by "at least 15%" versus what Apple originally requested. One executive-level source put the October cut at 15% to 20% for both premium models. Apple has "turned more conservative on shipments since early September," and the cuts will hit production volumes for some — but not all — suppliers in October, because production lead times differ. Whether November brings further adjustments is, per the reporting, unclear.

Apple did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. That is standard Apple practice — the company almost never comments on supply-chain reporting — but the silence leaves the Nikkei sourcing as the whole story. Treat it accordingly: well-sourced, multi-source relayed, but single-origin.

One more detail from the supply chain worth pocketing: a Nikkei source expects "a similar fate for the iPhone Duo" once Apple's first foldable goes on sale on October 23. The foldable has not even reached shelves and already has its own doomsday forecast. More on that below.

The $100 hikes: memory made Apple do it

The price increases are not in dispute. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the Pro Max at $1,299 — each $100 more than its iPhone 17 predecessor. Apple unveiled both at a New York event on September 9; they went on sale September 18. There is no standard iPhone 18 yet — Apple is holding the base model for spring, part of a staggered launch schedule that Nikkei's sources say may itself be softening demand.

Why the hikes? Memory. Nikkei ties the increases to soaring memory-chip costs: AI data centres are vacuuming up advanced chip-making capacity and memory supply, driving shortages and price increases that are expected to shrink both the PC and smartphone markets this year. Apple had already shown its hand in June, raising iPad and MacBook prices and saying it "could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry's data center buildout." MacRumors notes Apple has now "publicly blamed AI-driven memory chip costs" for price increases across its lineup.

Think about what that sentence means. The AI boom — the thing inflating every tech stock on Earth, the thing Apple itself is chasing with its on-device models — is now a cost line eating Apple's margins. Apple is simultaneously a beneficiary of AI hype and a victim of AI's physical appetite. The chips that train the models are the chips that are not going into phones.

What the data actually says: no collapse, but no comfort either

Here is where it gets interesting, because the independent demand signals do not show a phone nobody wants. They show a phone people want slightly less urgently than last year's.

UBS Evidence Lab, which tracks iPhone availability across more than 30 markets, has delivery waits roughly flat to slightly shorter year over year — the Pro down about two days week over week in the US in the latest note, tracking roughly in line with last year. Analyst David Vogt kept his Neutral rating and $296 price target, with the concern being that stable supply plus shorter waits could mean the price increases are making buyers hesitate. We checked the UBS series against the cut report: flat-to-shorter lead times are not what a demand collapse looks like. They are what a supply chain looks like after a $100 price shock — adjustment, not catastrophe.

Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management, tracking lead times on his own, found the Pro's waits 31% shorter than the iPhone 17 Pro at the same point last year — but the Pro Max 1% longer. Munster called the Pro's decline "concerning" while insisting the cycle is "off to a solid start," and suggested some buyers are simply waiting for the foldable Duo. Both things can be true: the cycle is fine, and the Pro specifically is softer.

And then there is China, where the launch was genuinely strong: Counterpoint Research found the Pro lineup sold 12% more units in its launch week than the previous generation, with Apple holding 33% of the Chinese smartphone market in week 38. Launch-week strength versus October order cuts is not a contradiction — three days of launch sales and a month of component orders are different windows — but it does mean the "nobody wants the phone" narrative is shoddy. The honest read is narrower: demand is decent, but not decent enough to justify the build Apple had planned at the old prices.

The market's verdict was swift and sour. Apple shares slipped about 1.6% in premarket trading on Friday after the report crossed. One relay put the day's close down 2.22% at $332.94 — second-hand, so take it with salt, but the direction is not in doubt. Investors do not like hearing that the most profitable product in consumer electronics history just got 15% less buildable.

Photo: An Apple Store in Philadelphia. UBS tracking shows iPhone 18 Pro delivery waits roughly flat year over year — decent demand, but not enough to support Apple's original build plan at the new prices. CC0 photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The staggered launch: Apple's colossally risky bet

Buried in the Nikkei reporting is the detail that should worry Cupertino most. Suppliers say device demand has been softer from late August into October, and Nikkei notes this "could be related to Apple changing its launch schedule for iPhone models." One supply-chain source was blunter: demand is "not as strong as previous years when all the new models are introduced all together" — though sources added the staggered schedule "alone doesn't account for the lower demand."

This is the split-launch gamble. By holding the standard iPhone 18 for spring — and, per MacRumors, pairing it with an iPhone 18e and iPhone Air 2 — Apple broke the annual ritual where every model lands at once and the whole lineup lifts together. The theory is sound: spread launches across the year, smooth the revenue. The practice, in year one, looks like this: the Pro models carry the autumn alone, at $100 higher prices, into a memory-cost storm, while a chunk of would-be buyers sit on their wallets waiting for spring — or for the $1,999 foldable.

Speaking of the foldable: the iPhone Duo takes preorders October 16 at 8 a.m. ET and goes on sale October 23, starting at $1,999 for 256GB. Counterpoint estimates it could sell 6 million units this year, and panel procurement for the Duo, Pro and Pro Max is reportedly "modestly higher" than the iPhone 17 line. So Apple is cutting Pro components while ramping foldable panels — a company hedging its flagship with its most expensive experiment ever.

Ternus's first test

All of this lands on a new desk. John Ternus — the longtime hardware engineering chief — became Apple's CEO on September 1, with Tim Cook moving to executive chair. Cook told The Independent he stepped down deliberately just before the foldable launch: "I wanted John to have some wind at his back."

It is a generous sentiment. It is also, as things stand, a wind carrying a 15% component cut, a pricing backlash, and a foldable that one supply-chain source has already pre-mourned. Ternus's Apple has now publicly admitted — via its June price statement — that it cannot shield customers from AI-driven cost inflation. That admission was honest. The question is whether $1,299 is where the premium ceiling cracks.

There is a deeper irony here for the industry's most disciplined operator. Apple spent a decade training customers that the Pro is worth the premium — better cameras, better chips, better margins. The iPhone 18 Pro is, by every account, a better phone than the 17 Pro. But "better" at $1,199 in a year when memory costs are spiking and the base model is six months away is a harder sell than "better" at $1,099 with the full lineup beside it. Apple did not misread its costs. It may have misread its customers' patience.

Our verdict: watch November, not October

Here is our judgment. The October cut is real news but not a crisis — yet. Fifteen percent off a single month's component orders, with lead times differing by supplier, is the supply chain doing what supply chains do: adjusting to a price signal. The genuinely bearish scenario is the one Nikkei's sources left open: further adjustments from November onward. If the cuts deepen into the holiday quarter, that is not adjustment. That is a demand problem.

The variables to watch are all dated. October 16: Duo preorders — does the $1,999 foldable pull demand forward or just sit there? October 23: Duo on sale. Early November: Apple's fiscal Q4 earnings (the exact date is disputed between outlets, so we will not print one), when Ternus faces analysts for the first time as CEO and gets asked, inevitably, about the cuts. And spring: the standard iPhone 18, the great unknown of the split-launch bet.

The uncomfortable truth for Apple: the AI boom giveth and the AI boom taketh away. Data-centre memory demand is the reason Apple's stock has a halo and the reason its phones cost $100 more. You cannot surf the wave and complain about the water. Ternus's first real test as CEO is proving Apple can price through it — or admitting, with the next build plan, that it cannot.

Related coverage: Apple's first foldable, the iPhone Duo, goes on sale October 23 — the $1,999 experiment launching into this storm; Microsoft's $2,599 laptop sold out its most expensive configuration — premium pricing working, for someone else; Tesla surrendered its 'Full Self-Driving' name in Europe — another giant forced to retreat this week.

Sources: Nikkei Asia via Reuters (Oct 9, 2026; Reuters noted it could not independently verify the report); 9to5Mac (Oct 9); MacRumors (Oct 8–9); Mint (Oct 10); iClarified (Oct 9); TradingView/Benzinga (Oct 9–10); TradingView/Seeking Alpha (~Oct 1); Hypebeast (Sept 2026); The Hindu BusinessLine (Reuters relay); The Independent via MacRumors (Cook interview). UBS Evidence Lab data via iClarified and TradingView relays. Counterpoint Research figures via iClarified and TradingView/Benzinga. AAPL premarket move via TradingView/Stocktwits (attributed). Apple did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. Fiscal Q4 earnings date omitted — outlets conflict (Nov 2 vs Nov 6).

Daniel Rao is a technology journalist covering AI, privacy and regulation at TechPulse USA. He writes about the collision between new technology and old norms.