Apple Inc. (AAPL  ) is preparing to raise prices across its product lineup after CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the company can no longer absorb skyrocketing costs for memory and storage components."Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," Cook said in a Wall Street Journal interview published Wednesday. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, but the situation has become unsustainable."

Cook declined to specify which devices will see higher sticker tags or when changes will take effect. Apple's next major launch - the iPhone 18 lineup, which is anticipated to include a foldable model - is expected in September.

The Memory Crunch

The culprit is a dramatic reallocation of DRAM and NAND supply toward AI infrastructure. Since Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOG  ) (GOOGL  ) Google, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT  ), Meta Platforms Inc. (META  ) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN  ) began announcing massive capex expansions last year, both memory and storage chip prices have quadrupled.

The three dominant DRAM producers - Micron Technology, Inc. (MU  ), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and SK Hynix Inc. - have watched their valuations surge accordingly.

Micron currently trades at $1,065.05, up more than 900% from its 52-week low, and storage chipmaker Sandisk Corp. (SNDK  ) is up 4,785% from its low of $40.10, per Benzinga Pro.

Cook said he has never witnessed a commodity swing of this magnitude across four decades working in electronics supply chains at IBM, Compaq and Apple.

"This is a 100-year flood," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years."

AAPL Stock Price Activity: Apple stock was up 0.51% at $297.45 during after-hours trading on Wednesday, Benzinga Pro.