Rising memory costs have pushed global smartphone prices up by an estimated 20 percent since the start of the year, and phone makers are passing those increases on to buyers. As a result, consumers are keeping their devices longer or buying refurbished handsets. But one obstacle stands in the way of that thriftier approach: tech companies largely do not offer inexpensive battery replacements.
Apple's out-of-warranty battery service illustrates the cost. Replacing the battery in the newest Pro model runs $129, $10 more than older Pro models, while an older base model such as the 2020 iPhone 12 costs $89. Apple has priced iPhone Duo batteries at $229. Those figures are not extreme on their face, but Apple has charged much less in the past: during 2018, in the wake of its iPhone throttling controversy, it charged just $29 in the US for a full year, $50 below its regular price at the time. Before 2018, Apple averaged about 1 to 2 million battery swaps a year; in 2018 that figure reportedly rose to 11 million.
Then-CEO Tim Cook later cut the company's revenue forecast in January 2019, saying some customers were taking advantage of the reduced battery pricing instead of upgrading. Apple's revenue for that quarter fell 5 percent year over year, driven by a 15 percent decline in iPhone revenue, though Cook attributed most of the shortfall to an economic slowdown in China worsened by the US-China trade war. Cheap battery replacements were, at most, a minor factor.
Phone prices have climbed since 2018, gradually at first and sharply in recent months. On the same day Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo, it raised prices on older iPhones, including the 17, by $100. Earlier this month, Samsung raised prices on most of its S26 phones by $100, after those phones had already launched higher than their 2025 counterparts. Even midrange models are affected: the S26 FE costs $700 at release, more than the S25 FE and S24 FE did, despite only modest upgrades.
American consumers have also seen purchasing power decline. Consumer prices are up about 34 percent since January 2018, and a Pew Research Center analysis found median weekly wages, adjusted for inflation, fell about 3.2 percent between December 2020 and December 2025. Real hourly earnings are about 1 percent below their December 2020 level and were down 0.3 percent year over year in August as inflation outpaced pay.
Apple and Samsung have largely responded to the memory crunch by protecting profitability through price increases above inflation. The $100 increase on the iPhone 17's previous $799 price is a 12.5 percent jump, while other consumer goods rose about 3.4 percent. Lithium-ion cells, the component that has truly fallen in cost, remain the exception. If predictions from SK Hynix and other memory manufacturers hold and supply does not catch up with demand until 2030, Apple, Samsung and every device manufacturer should offer cheap, out-of-warranty battery replacements while memory shortages last.
More hardware news from TechManNews.
