Apple Just Raised Prices Because of a Chip Shortage. But the Real Winner Isn't Apple. It's This AI Stock.

On June 25, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) raised prices on many of its products. For example, the cheapest iPad jumped to $449 from $349 and the entry MacBook rose $100. And the Apple TV, the HomePod, and the Vision Pro got more expensive, too. And the company didn't point to tariffs or a product redesign for the price hike. It blamed memory.

Apple said in a statement to media last week that it has "never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," pointing to artificial intelligence (AI) data centers that have "created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage" -- the chips inside nearly every device it sells.

But who's actually benefiting the most here? Not Apple. The biggest beneficiary is found further up the supply chain, where the companies are actually making what's in short supply. And in memory, the largest American maker of those chips is Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU).

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Here's what is behind Apple's price increase

Memory is dominated by three big companies, which leaves its pricing unusually sensitive to the balance of supply and demand. When demand runs well ahead of what those companies can produce, prices don't just drift higher -- they can spike.

That's what is happening now. The research firm TrendForce estimates that contract prices for conventional DRAM (dynamic random-access memory), the working memory inside phones and computers, jumped about 90% early in 2026, with another sharp increase expected the following quarter. NAND flash memory, used for storage, is expected to rise 70% to 75% in the same quarter.

The cause is AI. Data centers buy enormous quantities of memory to train and run AI models, and they can afford to pay up for it. That demand pulls supply away from consumer devices, leaving less for laptops, tablets, and phones -- and lifting the price of what's left. Apple's increases are simply that shortage reaching the end user.

Where the money lands

Now look at what the same shortage did to Micron's bottom line.

In its fiscal third quarter of 2026 (the period ended May 28, 2026), Micron's revenue climbed to $41.46 billion, from $9.30 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. The surge was led by data center demand.

But the figure that captures the windfall is profit. Micron's net income reached $28.24 billion for the quarter -- up from $1.89 billion a year earlier. That is nearly 15 times as much profit, earned selling the very chips whose scarcity is now raising Apple's prices.

The reason the gain is so lopsided is the math of a shortage. Micron's cost to make a chip changes little when the price of that chip doubles, so most of the increase falls straight to profit. Its adjusted gross margin -- the share of revenue left after production costs -- reached a record 84.9%, more than double Micron's year-ago non-GAAP margin. And management guided for revenue of around $50 billion and an even higher margin in the current quarter.

"Micron's record fiscal Q3 financial results and even stronger outlook for Q4 reflect the strategic value of memory in the AI era," said CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in the company's earnings release.

The windfall has made Micron one of the AI boom's biggest winners -- at about $1,145 a share, the memory maker now carries a market value of around $1.3 trillion.

But memory has always been cyclical, and investors haven't forgotten. At that price, Micron trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 26 -- yet only about 7 times the earnings the market expects over the next year. That low forward multiple signals the market doesn't expect today's record profits to last. When supply catches up, prices and margins can fall sharply.

So Apple's price increase and Micron's record quarter trace back to the same shortage. The consumer pays more at the register, and for now, the supplier collects it. Whether Micron stock rewards investors from here depends less on the size of today's windfall than on how long the shortage that produced it lasts.

Daniel Sparks and his clients have positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple and Micron Technology. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.