iPhone 18 pushed back to 2027: memory chips blamed

The rumors about a “split” launch for the new iPhone lineup are becoming increasingly tangible, and this time the source could be decidedly reliable.

According to what emerged from Pegatron’s quarterly call, one of Apple’s major suppliers, CEO Deng Guoyan reportedly confirmed that the iPhone 18 series will arrive this year only in part, leaving the standard model out of the September event for the first time since iPhone 11.

iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max confirmed for September, the rest of the lineup pushed to 2027

According to Pegatron’s statements, iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max would stay on traditional timelines, with a September debut alongside the much-talked-about iPhone Ultra, the first foldable smartphone from the Cupertino company.

Moving to the first quarter of 2027 would instead involve the iPhone 18 in its standard variant, along with iPhone 18e and iPhone Air 2. At the moment it’s not clear whether the three smartphones will be announced simultaneously or whether the debut will be spread out over the first months of the year.

Returning to the reason behind this change, Pegatron attributes the delay to a bottleneck starting with memory chips: availability would be gravely insufficient, to the point that the foundries now must wait for memory arrivals before they can complete the assembly of the processors.

A situation that, according to the company’s internal forecasts, will not return to normal levels before 2028. In addition, there is an external factor that is anything but marginal: the demand from data centers for AI servers would be absorbing the vast majority of the advanced components available on the market, depriving production capacity specifically of memory chips destined for smartphones.

L’impatto stimato sul mercato globale degli smartphone

Pegatron’s internal research estimates that this shortage could translate into a reduction of about 130 million units in the global smartphone market, a figure that shows how the problem affects not only Apple but the entire sector.

Pegatron, for its part, would already be massively redirecting its resources toward production for AI servers, with an expected growth of more than tenfold over the course of 2026: a sign of how the priorities of the entire supply chain are shifting elsewhere.

If the calendar is confirmed, for the first time after seven consecutive generations (from iPhone 11 to iPhone 17) the Apple lineup will not debut all at once in September, but will be split into two distinct launch windows, to the relief of those who were waiting for the iPhone 18 standard by the end of the year.

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