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Apple has already done something notable in 2026: it raised prices on MacBooks and iPads, citing the ballooning cost of memory chips, according to Fortune’s reporting from June 2026. That’s a company known for holding prices steady for years at a time making a public, cost-driven move. So it’s a fair question for anyone shopping for an Apple Watch, a Fitbit, or a Garmin right now — is your wrist next?
We dug into what’s actually been announced versus what’s mechanically possible, separating confirmed facts from reasonable speculation. Here’s the honest answer, in Q&A form.
Has Apple Announced a Price Hike for the Apple Watch?
No. As of this article’s write date in August 2026, Apple has raised prices on MacBooks and iPads over memory costs, but it has made no announcement — official or leaked — about Apple Watch pricing changing because of the shortage. If you’re comparing current-generation models while deciding, our Apple Watch Series 11 vs Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 comparison and Apple Watch Series 10 upgrade guide reflect current pricing as of publish.
Does the Apple Watch Even Use the Chips That Are in Short Supply?
Yes, technically — every Apple Watch has both DRAM and NAND flash onboard to run watchOS and store data locally. But the quantities are small. A flagship phone or laptop might ship with 8-16GB of RAM and 256GB-1TB of storage; a smartwatch typically runs on well under that, often a fraction of a gigabyte of working memory and a few gigabytes of flash. That gap matters because it means even a severe percentage increase in per-chip pricing translates into a much smaller dollar impact on a watch’s total bill of materials than it does on a laptop’s.
What About Fitbit, Garmin, and Other Fitness Trackers?
Same story, arguably more insulated. Dedicated fitness trackers (as opposed to full smartwatches) tend to run even leaner hardware than an Apple Watch or a Galaxy Watch — smaller displays, less onboard storage, simpler processors. As of August 2026, no fitness tracker brand — Fitbit, Garmin, Whoop, Oura — has made any public statement about memory-shortage-driven pricing. That’s consistent with the pattern: the devices getting hit are the ones with phone-and-laptop-scale memory needs, not wearables.
Could Apple (or Others) Raise Wearable Prices for Reasons Connected to the Shortage Anyway?
This is the more nuanced possibility, and it’s why “no announced price hike” isn’t the same as “guaranteed to stay cheap.” A few indirect paths exist:
- Shared component suppliers. Apple, Samsung, Google/Fitbit, and Garmin all buy memory chips from the same handful of global suppliers — Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Kioxia. Those suppliers are currently allocating a growing share of output to AI data centers, which analysts estimate now consume around 70% of world memory-chip production. Even if wearables need small quantities, a supplier squeezed on total capacity can still reprice or deprioritize smaller orders.
- R&D and corporate cost pressure amortized across a whole product line. Companies don’t price each product in a vacuum. If Apple’s overall component costs are rising sharply across Macs and iPads, that pressure can influence pricing decisions company-wide, even on products with a smaller direct exposure.
- Holiday-season component sourcing. Most wearable makers lock in the following year’s component costs and models during Q3/Q4 sourcing cycles. If DRAM and NAND prices are still elevated when 2027 wearables are being priced, that’s the point where any pass-through would most plausibly appear.
Why Did Apple Raise Mac and iPad Prices But Not Watch Prices?
The gap comes down to memory footprint per unit, and how much of a device’s total cost that memory represents. A MacBook or iPad is built around meaningful amounts of DRAM and NAND storage — those chips are a real, visible line item in the bill of materials, so a multi-hundred-percent spike in DRAM pricing shows up as a material cost increase Apple has to either absorb or pass on. An Apple Watch’s memory footprint is a rounding error by comparison; the display, the S-series chip, the battery, and the sensors dominate the watch’s component cost far more than its small amount of onboard memory does. That’s the core reason the same company can raise prices on one product line while leaving another untouched during the same shortage — it’s not inconsistency, it’s proportionality.
Is the Apple Watch Ultra More or Less Exposed Than the Standard Apple Watch?
Slightly more, in relative terms, though still nowhere near phone or laptop exposure. The Apple Watch Ultra carries more onboard storage than the standard Apple Watch to support offline maps and larger music libraries for workouts without a phone nearby, so it has a marginally larger memory footprint. But “marginally larger” here means a difference measured in a few extra gigabytes of flash, not the kind of scale that would meaningfully change the cost-pressure math. If anything, the Ultra’s much higher price point gives it more room to absorb a modest per-unit increase without shoppers noticing — the same margin cushion that separates premium and budget devices across the whole wearables category.
How Does This Compare to Samsung’s Galaxy Watch or Garmin’s Approach?
Samsung is the most interesting case to watch precisely because it’s both a wearable maker and one of the world’s largest memory chip manufacturers. Samsung has already raised Galaxy S26/S26+ phone prices by $100 over memory costs, but as of August 2026 it has not made a similar move on the Galaxy Watch line — consistent with the same footprint logic described above. Garmin, which builds fitness- and outdoor-focused wearables rather than general-purpose smartwatches, tends to run even leaner software and storage requirements than Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch, which likely gives it the most insulation of the major brands, though Garmin has not made any public statement on the matter either way.
What Happened the Last Time Component Costs Spiked?
The 2021 global chip shortage is a useful, if imperfect, precedent. That shortage was driven by a mix of pandemic-era factory shutdowns and surging demand for consumer electronics, and it hit semiconductors broadly — not memory specifically. Wearables mostly avoided major price increases during that cycle, though some models saw longer wait times and reduced availability rather than higher list prices. The current 2026 shortage is different in cause (AI infrastructure demand rather than factory disruption) and is forecast to last longer — Gartner’s “memflation” outlook runs through 2027, and SK Hynix has warned the imbalance could persist past 2030 in a worst case — which is part of why some analysts think this cycle could eventually reach further into the product stack than 2021’s did.
When Would We First See a Price Increase, If Any?
Realistically, not in the next few months for wearables specifically. Phone, PC, and console pricing moved first because those categories have much larger memory footprints and tighter margins that get squeezed faster. If wearables follow, expect it to show up at a normal launch cycle — new Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch, or Fitbit models announced later in 2026 or in 2027 — rather than as a mid-cycle price change on an existing model. Our timeline breakdown on buying now vs waiting covers this in more depth.
Would Apple Rather Raise Prices or Trim Specs?
If cost pressure ever does reach the Apple Watch, price increases aren’t the only lever Apple has. The company has a long history of managing component cost cycles through quieter means — holding a storage tier steady across generations instead of bumping it up, adjusting which materials or finishes are offered at each price point, or bundling changes like charger inclusion that shift cost without changing the headline number. Given how visible and politically sensitive a public Apple Watch price increase would be compared with a MacBook or iPad price change, “shrinkflation” — unchanged pricing with a slightly less generous spec sheet — is arguably the more likely outcome for Apple specifically if the shortage does eventually reach wearables, rather than a straightforward sticker-price hike.
Bottom Line for Apple Watch and Fitness Tracker Shoppers
If you’re deciding whether to buy an Apple Watch, Fitbit, or Garmin device right now, the memory shortage isn’t currently a documented factor in wearable pricing the way it is for phones, laptops, and consoles — but the mechanism for it to eventually matter is real, tied to shared suppliers and cost pressure that’s already visible elsewhere in these companies’ product lines. If current pricing looks fair to you, there’s little reason to wait specifically because of this shortage. The clearest signal to watch for going forward isn’t a mid-cycle announcement — it’s whether Apple, Samsung, or Garmin quietly holds storage specs flat or trims a bundled accessory at their next launch event, which would be the more likely early tell than a headline price increase. You can browse current Apple Watch models on Amazon at today’s pricing, or check our guide to Apple Watch models in order if you’re deciding which generation makes sense for your budget.