Apple Forces Display Price Cuts for iPhone 18 Pro to Battle Price Hikes

Apple is reportedly playing hard with its display partners to push for lower prices on the OLED panels for its upcoming iPhone 18 Pro series.

The report arrives courtesy of the Korean website The Elec, which suggests the Cupertino giant is pinching pennies amidst the ongoing RAM crisis to maintain its margins.

Even though the iPhone 18 Pro will feature Samsung's best M16 OLED panel, Apple is reportedly set to pay less money per unit. The brand initially proposed a budget of $70 (approximately Rs 6,650) per panel, but both Samsung and LG are now being squeezed to $66.5 (approximately Rs 6,300).

This is a whopping 20% difference compared to what Apple paid for the iPhone 17 displays. Besides, while memory prices have skyrocketed over the past few months, display technology seems to continue a downward trend. From costing upwards of $100 (approximately Rs 9500) in the iPhone 16 Pro era, we've come a long way.

Both Samsung and LG have acknowledged that the RAMmageddon has caused difficulties and immense pressure to slash component prices. Both display firms have a positive outlook on the results of managing the impact through internal cost innovations.

Market analysts at UBI Research estimate that Samsung Display will handle the bulk of the orders, providing roughly 46 million OLED panels across the entire iPhone 18 lineup, with 26 million allocated specifically to the Pro Max. LG Display is following closely and is expected to supply approximately 41 million panels, with 21 million reserved for the top-tier Pro Max model.

Even with Apple's aggressive efforts to keep its own manufacturing costs down, buyers will likely still feel the aftereffects of the rising memory costs.

As per IDC analysts (via MacRumors), the Apple iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max could see a steep $200 (approximately Rs 19,000) price hike at launch. This could take up their starting prices to $1,299 (approximately Rs 1,26,000) and $1,399 (approximately Rs 1,37,000), respectively.

A while back, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman revealed that the iPhone 18 Pro series launch date could be set for September 9, 2026. Going by that, we've got not even two months left to see the next-gen iPhones go official. We certainly do hope that the iPhone prices are kept in check and they don't become too inaccessible.