在南加州沙漠的一次骑行中，销售主管斯科特·纳尔逊停下越野摩托车，掏出步枪，射穿了自己的旧iPod。
During a ride in a Southern California desert, sales executive Scott Nelson stopped his dirt bike, pulled out a rifle and shot his old iPod.
纳尔逊向苹果销售闪存，他讨厌那种自己总在交易中吃亏的感觉。他所供职的日本制造商铠侠几乎没有议价能力。苹果是全球最大的闪存买家——闪存就是iPhone中用来存储照片、音乐和应用的芯片——并利用自身地位向供应商压榨每一分钱。苹果胁迫闪存制造商公开账簿，以便监控其销售情况，确保没有其他客户能拿到更优惠的价格。
Nelson sold flash storage to Apple and hated feeling like he always got the worst end of the deal. His Japan-based manufacturer, Kioxia, had little leverage. Apple was the world’s biggest buyer of flash—the chips in iPhones that store photos, music and apps—and used its position to squeeze every cent from suppliers. Apple bullied flash makers into opening their books so it could monitor sales, making sure no one else got a better deal.
铠侠和其他闪存制造商愤愤不平：苹果以几美分的价格向他们购买闪存，而这家iPhone制造商转手就能以几美元的价格卖给消费者。议价能力的悬殊让纳尔逊十分恼火，他为此改用安卓手机以示抗议。
Kioxia and other flash makers stewed as Apple paid them pennies for flash storage that the iPhone maker resold to customers for dollars. The disparity in bargaining power had galled Nelson, who used Android phones in protest.
纳尔逊保留了iPod的碎片——这是苹果第一款使用闪存的设备。这些碎片摆在他的办公桌上，如今攻守易势，它们有了特殊的意义。
Nelson kept the broken pieces of his iPod, the first Apple device to use flash. They sit on his desk and hold a special reverence now that the tables have turned.
据研究公司TechInsights称，过去一年，AI超大规模数据中心运营商的需求使闪存价格涨至原来的五倍，为铠侠和其他供应商开启了新时代。根据TechInsights的估算，两年前，苹果购买的闪存存储量几乎是微软、亚马逊、Meta和谷歌四家总和的两倍。如今，超大规模数据中心运营商的采购量已是苹果的两倍。闪存供应商及其销售团队今年夏天在加州圣克拉拉举行的行业最大会议上闲聊时，私下对苹果的“报应”表示幸灾乐祸。AI交易为铠侠的销售主管和其他闪存供应商提供了向苹果收取更高价格的新筹码。
In the past year, demand by AI hyperscalers has quintupled prices for flash, according to research firm TechInsights, opening a new era for Kioxia and other suppliers. Two years ago, Apple bought nearly twice the flash storage of Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google combined, according to TechInsights estimates. Hyperscalers are now buying double Apple’s Flash memory suppliers and their sales teams privately expressed their glee at Apple’s comeuppance during chitchat at the industry’s largest conference this summer in Santa Clara, Calif. AI deals have given Kioxia sales executives and other flash suppliers new leverage to charge Apple higher prices.
Meta、微软和亚马逊今年与铠侠签署合同，以承诺支付更高价格的方式确保长期供应。如果市场行情逆转，这些合同能保障铠侠的利润。铠侠拒绝置评。
Meta, Microsoft and Amazon signed contracts with Kioxia this year to secure long-term supply by committing to higher prices. The contracts protect Kioxia’s profits if the market turns. The company declined to comment.
超大规模数据中心运营商有能力支付更高的价格。闪存占构建数据中心的比重小于制造一部iPhone，且会计准则允许公司将成本分摊到多年中。
Hyperscalers can afford to pay more. Flash storage is a smaller part of building a data center than making an iPhone, and accounting rules allow companies to spread the cost over years.
根据TechInsights的估计，苹果今年预计将花费25亿美元购买闪存，而其在2025年购买大致相同数量的闪存仅花费了6亿美元。熟悉苹果采购业务的人士表示，苹果执行董事长蒂姆·库克将不断攀升的存储芯片价格比作“百年一遇的洪水”。然而，苹果却忽视了分析师的警告，被打了个措手不及。
Apple is expected to spend $25 billion on flash storage this year for about the same amount it bought for $6 billion in 2025, according to estimates by TechInsights. Tim Cook, Apple’s executive chairman, compared escalating memory chip prices to a “100-year flood.”Yet Apple had ignored analysts’ warnings and was caught off guard, said people familiar with the company’s procurement practices.
这些知情人士称，公司高管曾认为他们比任何人都更懂市场。在2005年每吉字节68美元的闪存价格，到2023年已跌至5美分。如今，人工智能行业的需求已将价格推高至每吉字节30多美分，暴涨550%，这威胁到了苹果通过出售额外存储空间获得的巨额利润率。
Company executives believed they knew the market better than anyone else, the people said. Flash that cost $68 a gigabyte in 2005 had fallen to a nickel by 2023. Now, demand by the AI industry has lifted the price to more than 30 cents a gigabyte, a 550% jump, threatening Apple’s steep profit margins from selling extra storage.
根据《华尔街日报》的一项分析，去年iPhone 17 Pro的买家向苹果支付了200美元，以将256吉字节的基础款存储空间翻倍。当时的额外存储空间对苹果而言成本为15美元，此后已飙升至66美元。
Buyers of the iPhone 17 Pro paid Apple $200 last year for double the storage of its 256-gigabyte base model. The extra storage at the time cost Apple $15 and has since shot up to $66, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
TechInsights分析师沃尔特·库恩表示：“从历史上看，苹果在与存储供应商谈判时一直非常强势。而随着力量对比的转变，供应商现在的满意度可以说是无以复加。”
“Apple has historically driven a very hard bargain with memory suppliers,” said Walt Coon, an analyst at TechInsights. “And there’s no shortage of satisfaction among suppliers now that the balance of power is shifting.”
苹果在一份声明中表示：“我们与许多供应商合作了几十年，我们历来极其珍视彼此的伙伴关系。我们期待继续共同开展重要的工作。”《华尔街日报》发现，自推出iPhone和iPad设备以来直至2025年，在向其买家收取的每美元额外存储费中，苹果记录的平均毛利润超过80美分。对于2010年以来售出的Mac电脑，这一平均比例接近80美分。
“We’ve worked with many of our suppliers for decades, and we deeply value their partnership over the years,” Apple said in statement. “We look forward to continuing our important work together.”Apple recorded an average gross profit of more than 80 cents for every dollar it charged iPhone and iPad buyers for extra storage since it first released those devices through 2025, the Journal found. For Mac computers sold since 2010, it averaged nearly 80 cents.
近几个月来，苹果提高了几乎所有产品的价格。iPhone的平均价格上涨了13%，其中还包括通常会降价的旧机型。
In recent months, Apple raised prices for nearly all of its products. Prices rose an average of 13% for iPhones, an increase that included older models which typically get a price cut.
对苹果而言，问题是消费者会因价格上涨而延长iPhone的使用时间，还是继续以惯常的速度购买。对闪存制造商而言，问题是苹果何时——或者是否会——重获其在闪存市场的影响力。
The question for Apple is whether consumers will react to the higher prices by keeping their iPhones longer or whether they will continue to buy at their usual pace. For flash-storage makers, the question is when—or if—Apple will regain its flash-market leverage.
伯恩斯坦研究公司的分析师马克·纽曼表示：“苹果与闪存行业之间一直是一种爱恨交织的关系。”他说，多年来苹果一直支撑着这些制造商，但其压制价格的能力虽然有利于股东，却让供应商感觉“被坑了”。2001年，铠侠（当时名为东芝）的工程师向两名苹果高管展示了一块他们研发的1.8英寸、5GB的硬盘，但他们当时还不知道该拿它做什么。
“It’s been a love-hate relationship between Apple and the flash industry,” said Mark Newman, an analyst with Bernstein Research. Apple has sustained the manufacturers for years, he said, but its power to cap prices, while beneficial to shareholders, left suppliers feeling “screwed.”In 2001, engineers at Kioxia, then called Toshiba, showed two Apple executives a 1.8-inch-diameter, 5-gigabyte hard drive they had developed but didn’t yet know what to do with.
一位知情人士称，苹果高管立刻意识到这块硬盘非常适合他们的秘密项目。苹果买下了这块微型硬盘的独家使用权，它后来成为iPod的核心，而iPod是苹果的突破性产品。
The Apple executives knew right away that it would be perfect for their stealth project, said a person familiar with the meeting. Apple bought exclusive rights to the tiny hard drive, which became the heart of the iPod, the company’s breakout hit.
闪存技术让数据存储又向前迈进了一大步，事实证明闪存更适合消费设备。与内含可能损坏的旋转磁盘的硬盘不同，闪存是一块没有活动部件的芯片。它还更小、能存储更多数据，并且耗电更少。
Data storage took another leap forward with flash technology, which proved even better for consumer devices. Unlike hard drives containing spinning disks that can break, flash is a chip with no moving parts. It is also smaller, holds more data and requires less power.
2005年，苹果利用闪存推出了iPod Nano，这款音乐播放器比一支铅笔还薄。当时，苹果预付了12.5亿美元，从五家公司购买截至2010年的闪存供应。供应商看到机会，建造了更多工厂。2007年6月，苹果发布了iPhone，这款基于闪存的智能手机彻底改变了消费电子产品。
Apple used flash to launch the iPod Nano in 2005, a music player thinner than a pencil. At the time, Apple prepaid $1.25 billion for flash supply through 2010 from five companies. Suppliers, seeing opportunity, built more factories. In June 2007, the company released the iPhone, a flash-based smartphone that revolutionized consumer electronics.
据TechInsights称，随着iPhone的腾飞，苹果占据了全球闪存供应量的五分之一以上，每年花费30亿至40亿美元，成为全球最大的买家。
As the iPhone took off, Apple staked a claim on more than a fifth of the world’s flash supply, spending $3 billion to $4 billion a year, according to TechInsights, and became the world’s largest buyer.
苹果公司对闪存的需求增强了其议价筹码，而供应商则默许了其对行业最低价格的要求。闪存制造商受益于苹果的大规模订单，因为芯片制造的高固定成本需要工厂满负荷运转才能盈利。
Apple’s appetite for flash storage swelled its leverage, and suppliers acquiesced to its demands for the lowest prices in the industry. Flash makers benefited from Apple’s massive orders because the high fixed costs of chip manufacturing required factories to operate at capacity to make money.
该公司还有另一种强硬策略：避免承诺。在以谷底价格订购闪存后，如果闪存价格下跌，苹果有时会拒绝收货。这使得供应商手头积压了大量未售出的芯片，其中包括为苹果定制的芯片。铠侠的高管曾半开玩笑地说，他们觉得自己就像试图踢美式橄榄球的查理·布朗——而露西总是在最后一刻把球拿开。这种对峙往往以供应商进一步削减苹果的采购价格而告终。
The company had another hardball tactic: Avoid commitments. After ordering flash at rock-bottom prices, Apple would refuse delivery at times if flash prices were falling. That left suppliers holding piles of unsold chips, including ones custom-made for Apple. Kioxia executives joked they felt like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football—with Lucy always pulling it away. The standoff often ended with suppliers further cutting Apple’s prices.
幕后推行这一策略的高管托尼·布莱文斯曾任苹果采购主管。供应商称，他因精明的谈判策略——或者说残酷的手段——而被称为“布莱文斯终结者”。
The executive behind that strategy, Tony Blevins, was Apple’s head of procurement. He became known as the Blevinator for clever negotiating tactics—or ruthless ones, said suppliers.
于2022年离开苹果的布莱文斯有时会与供应商安排背靠背的会议，好让竞争对手的销售团队狭路相逢，从而加剧竞争紧张局势。销售代表们学会了打包营养棒，以支撑他们度过有时被苹果高管拖到午夜以后、且没有晚餐休息的谈判会议。布莱文斯扮演恶人的名声赋予了其团队议价筹码：如果合同条款不合心意，他们就会威胁把布莱文斯叫来。
Blevins, who left Apple in 2022, sometimes set up back-to-back meetings with suppliers so that rival sales teams might run into each other, stoking competitive tension. Sales representatives learned to pack nutrition bars to sustain them through negotiating sessions that Apple executives sometimes pushed past midnight without a dinner break. Blevins’s bad-cop reputation gave his staff leverage: They threatened to call him in if contract terms weren’t to their liking.
一项重要的合同条款允许苹果审查其供应商的账目。知情人士透露，闪存制造商通常必须将苹果指定为“最惠客户”，以确保没有其他买家能获得更低的价格。苹果的审计使其能够核实没有人支付更低的价格。
One significant contract term allowed Apple to audit its suppliers’ books. Flash makers typically had to designate Apple as a “most favored customer,” which guaranteed that no other buyer got a lower price, according to people familiar with the agreements. Apple’s audits allowed it to verify that no one paid less.
知情人士称，十多年前，苹果发现美光（Micron）以更低的价格向另一家客户出售闪存，并在仲裁中赢得了数千万美元的赔偿。苹果对其供应商进行审计的频率如此之高，以至于布莱文斯（Blevins）与审计机构德勤（Deloitte）谈判达成了一项数量折扣。
Apple caught Micron selling flash at cheaper prices to another customer and won an arbitration settlement worth tens of millions of dollars more than a decade ago, said people familiar with the dispute. Apple audited its suppliers so often that Blevins negotiated a volume discount with the auditor, Deloitte.
据熟悉该公司采购业务的人士透露，苹果的审计还让这家iPhone制造商获得了对闪存供应商业务运营的第一手了解，包括工厂车间机器的产量。这些人表示，这使得苹果的谈判代表能够确定每个供应商对大订单的渴求程度。
Apple’s audits also gave the iPhone maker firsthand knowledge of flash suppliers’ business operations, including the output of machines on the factory floor, according to the people familiar with the company’s procurement practices. That allowed Apple negotiators to determine how badly each supplier needed a big order, those people said.
根据国际数据公司（IDC）的估计，去年大约有1万名iPhone买家为存储升级付费，以寻求空间来支持高分辨率视频、内容下载、文本附件和消耗大量数据的应用程序。
Roughly 100 million iPhone buyers paid for storage upgrades last year, according to IDC estimates, seeking a cushion to support high-resolution videos, content downloads, text attachments and data-hungry apps.
许多人支付200美元购买额外的256吉字节，甚至支付高达800美元购买额外的1.75太字节。《华尔街日报》的分析显示，按85%的利润率计算，这转化为超过100亿美元的毛利润。Mac和iPad买家也会升级存储容量，从而增加数十亿美元的收入。当设备的存储空间耗尽时，苹果会收取每月的iCloud存储费用。多年来，闪存供应商一直试图占据上风。
Many paid $200 for an extra 256 gigabytes and as much as $800 for an extra 1.75 terabytes. At an 85% margin, that translates to more than $10 billion in gross profit, according to the Journal analysis. Mac and iPad buyers also upgrade storage capacity, adding billions of dollars more. When devices run out of space, Apple charges for monthly iCloud storage. Flash suppliers have tried to gain the upper hand over the years.
知情人士透露，2015年底前后，闪迪（Sandisk）拒绝了苹果增加供应的要求，因为它已经有了愿意支付更高价格的客户。知情人士称，布莱文斯威胁一名闪迪销售人员称要进行报复，并表示他会让闪迪的首席执行官桑杰·梅赫罗特拉（Sanjay Mehrotra）“爬着求”苹果。
Around the end of 2015, Sandisk refused Apple’s requests to send additional supply because it already had customers willing to pay more. Blevins threatened a Sandisk salesman with retaliation, saying he would have Sandisk’s chief executive, Sanjay Mehrotra, “crawl on his knees” back to Apple, according to a person familiar with the call.
知情人士表示，2017年前后闪存供应吃紧时，闪迪的新所有者西部数据（Western Digital）要求苹果支付一笔费用来预留闪存芯片，且并不承诺向其出售任何闪存芯片。
When flash supplies tightened around 2017, Western Digital, Sandisk’s new owner, required Apple to pay a fee to reserve flash chips without committing to sell it any, said people familiar with the strategy.
据知情人士透露，布莱温斯（Blevins）气急败坏。他在办公室的白板上写下日期并画了圈，将照片发给西部数据（Western Digital）高管迈克·科达诺（Mike Cordano），并承诺要进行报复。
Blevins was apoplectic. He wrote the date on his office whiteboard and circled it, texting a photo to Western Digital executive Mike Cordano and promising payback, according to people familiar with the exchange.
据知情人士透露，一年后闪存价格下跌，布莱温斯等来了他的机会。科达诺和他的同事杰里·卡格利（Jerry Kagele）带着一张退款支票来到布莱温斯的办公室作为求和礼物。知情人士称，布莱温斯要求他们此后绝不能再要求预留费，两人通过握手达成了这一协议。
Blevins got his chance when flash prices fell a year later. Cordano and his colleague Jerry Kagele went to Blevins’s office with a refund check as a peace offering, according to people familiar with the meeting. Blevins demanded they never ask for a reservation fee again, which the men agreed to in a handshake deal, people familiar with the interaction said.
知情人士表示，作为惩罚，他告诉这两人，如果西部数据想让苹果（Apple）购买其闪存芯片，就必须向这家iPhone制造商支付测试费用。即便如此，苹果也没有义务购买任何芯片。随后，布莱温斯让苹果安保人员将他们护送了出去。
As a punishment, he told the men that if Western Digital wanted Apple to buy its flash chips, it would have to pay the iPhone maker to test them, the people familiar said. Even then, Apple wasn’t obligated to buy any. Blevins then had them escorted out by Apple security.
该行业的低谷出现在2023年。新冠疫情期间居家办公设备的繁荣降温，闪存价格跌至每吉字节5美分的谷底。伯恩斯坦研究公司（Bernstein Research）估计，闪存行业当年产生了190亿美元的营业亏损，而苹果通过销售额外的闪存获得了14亿美元的毛利。
The industry’s low point came in 2023. The Covid-era, work-from-home device boom cooled, and flash prices bottomed out at 5 cents a gigabyte. Bernstein Research estimated the flash industry generated operating losses of $19 billion that year, while Apple earned $14 billion in gross profit selling extra flash storage.
铠侠（Kioxia）销售高管纳尔逊（Nelson）说，那是一段艰难的时期，“我希望我们再也不要看到了”。
Those were tough times that “I hope we don’t ever see again,” said Nelson, the Kioxia sales executive.