BlockBeats News, June 26th, Micron's Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana subtly pointed out that "certain specific large customers" (Apple) took advantage of their negotiating power during the last industry downturn to significantly push prices down, severely weakening the company's investment capacity and laying the groundwork for today's severe memory shortage.
Further data shows that Apple's price pressure tactics had led to massive losses for suppliers such as Micron and SK Hynix in 2022 and 2023 (some reaching -90% gross margin), while Apple profited over $16 billion through the iPhone's different storage capacity pricing strategy.
Interestingly, after 3 years, Apple reaped what they sowed. Yesterday, Apple was forced to raise prices of its hardware products due to soaring storage chip costs, subsequently causing a steep drop in the company's stock price.
