The intricate relationship between Apple and Samsung has reached a new milestone as the South Korean tech giant emerges as the dominant supplier for the latest iPhone 17 series. According to The Korea Economic Daily, Samsung has secured between 60% and 70% of the memory shipments for the iPhone 17, a notable increase from the balanced distribution previously shared with SK Hynix and Micron.
SK Hynix and Micron have aggressively redirected their production capacity toward High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) to satisfy the demands of AI server giants like Nvidia. Consequently, Samsung’s commitment to maintaining large-scale production of mobile-focused LPDDR memory has allowed it to fill the vacuum. With Apple producing approximately 230 million iPhones annually, Samsung is currently the only entity capable of guaranteeing the massive volumes required for such a global rollout.
For the iPhone 17, Apple demanded unprecedented consistency across tens of millions of units, specifically targeting the elimination of momentary voltage spikes that could interfere with the performance of the A19 and A19 Pro processors. Samsung’s latest LPDDR5X modules successfully met those.
The iPhone 17 Pro and the new iPhone 17 Air feature 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM, the highest capacity ever integrated into an iPhone. This memory is not only faster but physically superior; at just 0.65mm, it is the thinnest 12GB DRAM module available. Furthermore, it boasts a 21.2% improvement in thermal resistance and a 25% reduction in power consumption, which are critical metrics for maintaining performance in the iPhone’s increasingly thin form factors.
The deepening partnership comes at a time of extreme price volatility in the semiconductor market. Due to the global memory crunch, the cost of a 12GB LPDDR5X module has surged from approximately $30 at the start of 2025 to nearly $70 today. Despite these rising costs, Apple has reportedly already requested a large-scale supply from Samsung for the iPhone 18.
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