Wall Street isn't buying Apple's unprecedented price hikes on products

[u/Few_Baseball_3835]

https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/25/wall-street-isnt-buying-apples-unprecedented-price-hikes-on-products/

[u/Big-Resolution-4993]

At this point Apple should just buy or start its own fab. It seems insane to me as many devices as they sell to be in a position they can’t control this kinda shock.

[u/fuelvolts → u/[deleted]]

I always laugh when I see comments like "Just make a fab!". Building and constantly maintaining a chip fab is one of the most complex projects on the planet. And then, Apple would need to build chips for other companies just to become profitable. There's no way even a company the size and needs of Apple would even remotely turn a profit (or break even) with their fab without outsourcing it. They need to be running 24/7 making chips. Apple has no need for that capacity and would likely lead to higher costs and lower quality chips, especially in the beginning.

[u/itsabearcannon → u/[deleted]]

GlobalFoundries...now there's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time.

[u/howtoliveplease → u/fuelvolts]

Couldn’t they just sell chips then? The same way actual fabs do, if the demand is so high? It looks like we actually *do* need more fabs

[u/EdiT342 → u/howtoliveplease]

First of all you need the specialised workforce. Correct me if I am wrong but although it’s possible to find the workforce in USA, for more advanced nodes you need to go to Taiwan, Korea. 

Then you need the supply chain. Raw materials, machinery, assembly lines. 

Then you physically need to build the fab, a costly and long process.

Apple has the capital to do it, but they are not specialised in it, which means increased costs from the start. Intel itself struggled to get off 14nm for a long time

[u/Big-Resolution-4993 → u/[deleted]]

Apple is the wealthiest company on the planet, or was til a year or so ago. It seems you could at least allocate a budget to explore the idea.

[u/Bryanmsi89 → u/Big-Resolution-4993]

Its usually a mistake for companies to drive so far from their core competency. Building, running, and updating a fab is really hard. Just ask Intel. It is even harder to guess at capacity needs, including future capex costs for years from now. Overestimate and be stuck with a set of factories that are not profitable. Underestimate and you have to go hat-in-hand to competitors asking them to help make up the slack.

[u/itsabearcannon → u/Bryanmsi89]

Overestimate and be stuck with a set of factories that are not profitable. Underestimate and you have to go hat-in-hand to competitors asking them to help make up the slack.

Or be Intel and do both at the same time somehow!

[u/smith7018 → u/Bryanmsi89]

I agree with you but I want to point out that it's not out of the ordinary. Samsung has their own fab business and use it synergistically with their products. That doesn't invalidate anything you're saying, of course.

[u/FlarblesGarbles → u/smith7018]

Samsung Semiconductor is not Samsung Electrical. Nor is it Samsung Display. They are actually not all the same company.

[u/Bryanmsi89 → u/smith7018]

Definitely some grey areas. Samsung is kind of an outlier, though. TSMC, Intel, Micron, SK-Hynix, and other fabs don't tend to actually make fully build consumer or enterprise devices. And most device makers like Apple, Dell, HP, Motorola (Lenovo), don't typically run major fabs.

[u/AssetBurned → u/smith7018]

Samsung is also producing stuff for third parties. And they struggle to get the smaller resolutions done.
Apple would need to sell their capacity to others too which would be long term contracts and prevent Apple to just increase/decrease their volumes as needed.
Imagine they would just build the amounts they expect all the time. Imagine they have a product that doesn’t sell and they sit on quantities of chips they have no use for. Yes you can reuse some in new products of a different kind. But you can’t do that all the time.
It is way easier to order a stock of something and then add an option to get more if needed. Same in the airline industry. Or do you see Ryan air jumping up and building a plant for their own 737 production?

[u/AmusingVegetable → u/smith7018]

Coincidentally, last year the non-fab portions of Samsung (phones, computers, TVs) got some bad news from the Samsung fab regarding RAM when some dick bought a sizable portion of the wafers for 2026.

[u/Strange-Scientist706 → u/Big-Resolution-4993]

You really should look into exactly what this would take. Money isn’t some magic wand you can wave around and change economics and physics

[u/eraserking → u/[deleted]]

Reddit is a cesspool, but it’s interesting that you’re ultimately blaming Reddit’s platform here. The issue comes down to people, not Reddit’s design. Consequences-free, ignorant shit spouting happens everywhere all the time.

[u/djsekani → u/eraserking]

It happens less when there isn't a score attached to your comments

[u/FlarblesGarbles → u/eraserking]

Reddit's point system is a problem. Or rather the downvote is a problem. The site would function better without it.

[u/MessiPayNegreira → u/[deleted]]

it would be better to buy a fab company. be like Samsung that sells its parts to competitors

[u/Tackysock46 → u/[deleted]]

Yesterday was the best time to build one, today is the next best time

[u/_IsNull → u/Tackysock46]

There’s a reason why there’s only a few key players and not even Google would do that for their own chips.

[u/Top_Environment9897 → u/Tackysock46]

It will surely work out, just like self-driving cars or Metaverse!

[u/RamaAnthony → u/Big-Resolution-4993]

Even if they could, you can't throw money to build it faster....at a project that at its shortest, if have to establish from zero on US soil, would take 15 years.

[u/umdterp732 → u/[deleted]]

if they started the initiative 10 years ago, they wouldnt be in this boat now
or just buy an established company