Now if the price of the A20 chip is to increase by let’s say 50%, as per the report, Apple would have to pass the extra cost to the customer to avoid taking a more significant hit to its profit margin, or come up with efficiencies elsewhere. This means pricing for the iPhone 18 series could go up compared to the iPhone 17 series. It should be noted that this is all speculation at this point and it could very well be that Apple finds a way to compensate for the increased chip manufacturing price.
As for the release timeline, it was recently reported that Apple plans on staggering the iPhone 18 series launch. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models are expected to arrive in the second half of 2026 while the base iPhone 18 is said to launch in the first half of 2027, alongside the iPhone 18e.
As mentioned earlier, TSMC has reportedly notified all its customers to expect higher pricing for the chips manufactured using the 2nm process so the price increase may not be limited to Apple’s devices, but next generation Snapdragon and MediaTek powered devices as well.