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Investing.com -- Apple is the best-positioned major hardware maker to weather the sharp surge in memory prices, according to Bernstein, which says the company faces only a “0.3% impact to quarterly EPS” despite historic cost inflation across the industry.
The firm cites Apple’s “huge gross margins” and, critically, its “long-term contracts with memory makers (typically 12 months)” as key buffers.
Bernstein explained that headline DRAM and NAND prices have risen 104% and 52% since the second quarter of 2025, with spot prices “more frightening at 206% and 59%.”
Analyst Mark Newman noted that the DRAM contract prices OEMs actually pay are up 38%-69%, with “mobile DRAM experiencing the highest cost inflation.” NAND contract prices increased a milder 5%-16%, while HBM for AI servers has been “relatively flat.”
Memory is said to account for the highest share of bill-of-materials costs in PCs at roughly 13%, followed by traditional servers at 12%, then handsets and AI servers at about 8%.
Bernstein concluded that the current surge will drive a “low to mid-single-digit percentage impact on total COGS for PCs, traditional servers, and handsets,” with the effect on AI servers “negligible.”
The note stresses that the hit to profitability across OEMs should be “entirely transitory,” with companies historically able to pass through component inflation.
Bernstein wrote that hardware OEMs were generally able to pass through higher memory costs with just short-term transitory impact to margins, and that server gross margins show “no meaningful correlation with DRAM price movements.”
Still, the near-term pressure varies. Bernstein sees HPQ and SMCI with the most potential downside at 19% to EPS on a one-quarter basis. Dell and HPE follow at 6% and 4%. Apple, however, remains “the most immune to memory price fluctuations,” reinforcing its unique insulation as memory costs continue climbing into 2026.