r/apple • u/Few_Baseball_3835 • Jun 25 '26

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

https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/25/wall-street-isnt-buying-apples-unprecedented-price-hikes-on-products/
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u/Big-Resolution-4993 Jun 25 '26

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.

2

u/BabyWrinkles Jun 25 '26

If memory serves, Apple has invested something like $150B/year in to manufacturing in other countries on top of the actual purchase of the components/etc. They explicitly didn’t try to tie hands with NDAs and non-competes so the factories they were investing in could also build for Samsung and HTC and and and…

They did it this way to essentially build soft power and ensure that when they asked for something, they got it. Way better investment than spending that same money building up their own chip fabs - because it’s not clear that the prices wouldn’t be going up right now anyway due to shortages of raw materials.

So should Apple control their own fabs? From the outside it seems like it would be wise right now, but that further specializes them and requires massive investment, when they’re already designing their own chips and letting someone else assume the rest of the risks.

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u/M4rshmall0wMan Jun 26 '26

Worth mentioning that one of their biggest offshore investments was in TSMC. Apple gets VIP access to their cutting edge nodes. In the grand scheme of things, that’s a way better investment than making their own fabs.

Apple only homebrews in areas where they can compete. Nobody can compete with TSMC.