Apple raises Mac and iPad prices as AI chip shortage drives memory costs up fourfold

Apple raises Mac and iPad prices, spares iPhone for now

Amid a worldwide memory shortage driven by the AI buildout, Apple is raising prices of its Mac and iPad lineups, as reported by Bloomberg. For the moment, there is no rise in iPhone prices, but there is a possibility that it could arrive later in the year. The new entrant to the MacBook lineup, MacBook Neo, will now cost $699 instead of $599. The company also raised the base MacBook Air's price from $1,099 to $1,299 and the MacBook Pro's price from $1,699 to $1,999. The desktop-class Mac Studio now costs $2,499 up from $1,999 iPads also received a price bump: the Air now costs $749, up from $599, and the Pro now costs $1,199, up from $999. Apple's smart home devices are costlier as well. The standard HomePod is up from $299 to $349, HomePod Mini is up from $99 to $129, and the Apple TV box is up from $99 to $129. "The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," the company told CNBC in a statement. "We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions," it added. Last week, Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal that price hikes for Apple's products were "unavoidable," as memory and storage component prices keep rising because of the AI boom. In March, analyst firm Counterpoint noted that smartphone DRAM prices have jumped by 50%, and NAND Flash storage prices have jumped by over 90% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026. "We have reached a point where absorbing memory price hikes is impossible unless one wishes to run a business at a major loss. Memory prices have increased more than fourfold since Q4 2025, and this single component has eroded the profit margins of most consumer electronics players. Apple has done well to hold prices steady until now, though it hinted at increases last week," Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint, told TechCrunch. "The growing demand for AI infrastructure has fundamentally changed the memory supply chain, meaning higher BOM (Bill of Materials) costs are now a lasting challenge. We also expect other PC and tablet OEMs to follow Apple's example. They may raise prices on select products, cut discounts, or adjust their product lines to focus more on premium devices," he added. While the AI chip crunch is affecting consumer companies, suppliers like Micron are reaping the benefits. The company clocked in a 4x jump in year-over-year revenue in its most recent earnings.

Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads as memory costs skyrocket

SAN FRANCISCO, June 25 (Reuters) - Apple raised iPad and MacBook prices on Thursday, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry's datacenter buildout. The move does not affect Apple's main cash cow, the iPhone. But it would take starting price of the Neo - its lowest priced laptop aimed at winning marketshare from affordable Windows and Chromebook laptops - from $599 to $699 months after launch. The increase shows even the world's most valuable consumer electronics company with supply chain relationships that are the envy of the industry is not immune to a memory price surge that has dulled the outlook for smartphone and PC sales. Memory makers such as Micron (MU.O), opens new tab have in recent months prioritized orders from AI chipmakers like Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, helping them earn record profit but leaving little supply for electronics makers that have been forced to increase prices. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have ⁠now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac." Apple hiked the price of MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes of storage rose to $1,299 from $1,099, while the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage rose to $1,999 from $1,699, according to updated prices on its website. The iPad Air with 128 gigabytes of storage rose from $599 to $749, among other changes. Shares of the company were down 0.7% in premarket trading after the news. Apple said in April existing inventories had helped it keep its gross margins above Wall Street expectations but that rising memory costs would start to catch up by the end of this month, with profitability expected to fall slightly. "We expect significantly higher memory costs," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call with analysts in late April. "Where we don't give color beyond June, I can tell you that beyond the June quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business," Cook had said. MEMORY SURGE ADDS PRESSURE ON ELECTRONICS MAKERS Apple has not disclosed what steps besides price hike ⁠it has taken to address rising memory costs. The company said on Thursday, "We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions." Prices of dynamic random access memory, used in virtually all modern tech gadgets, rose as much as 98% in the first quarter of 2026 and is set to jump by another 58% to 63% in the current quarter, according to industry tracker TrendForce. That surge, dubbed by some experts as "RAMageddon", has been driven by a boom in AI data center construction, with companies like Nvidia signing long-term deals with memory makers who are racing ⁠to increase capacity. Micron said on Wednesday it has locked in $22 billion in such long-term commitments from customers looking to secure their memory supplies. The rising costs are expected to weigh heavily on device sales this year, with research firm IDC estimating that the smartphone market would see its biggest-ever annual decline of nearly 14% this year while the PC market will fall 11.3%. "The memory environment is tough and ⁠remains structurally tough for the foreseeable future," said Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies. "We had already had signals Apple would need to raise prices, and with their supply chain as good as anyone, there is concern the rest of the industry may have to raise prices even more than Apple." Among the notable bright spots has been the ⁠MacBook Neo launched in March, which helped power Apple's strong sales forecast for the June quarter and has even led some industry watchers to revise their estimates for PC sales. With its increased price, it has now lost a $100 advantage over the $699 XPS 13 laptop that Dell unveiled last month especially to take on the Neo, while also making it more expensive than some Chromebooks from Lenovo and Asus. Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Rise in memory chip costs puts pressure on retailers of laptops and smartphones

So far, Best Buy said, customers are still spending, but the electronics retailer expects its computing division to be most affected. As the global artificial intelligence race accelerates, memory chips are getting more expensive. As a result, costs of some consumer electronics are beginning to rise for retailers and consumers alike. Memory storage, known as RAM, is crucial for all computing devices, including phones, tablets and laptops. The cost of chips has been rising due to a supply shortage driven largely by massive demand for AI data centers. Companies such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Google have been scrambling to secure RAM for their chips. Apple on Thursday announced it's raising its prices on MacBooks and iPads -- passing along the rising cost of memory to consumers -- with the potential for more price hikes down the road. The memory shortage is an "unprecedented challenge," the company said in a statement. Incoming Best Buy CEO Jason Bonfig said on a call with reporters earlier this month that the company expects its computing division will be the most affected by price hikes. "We did see some staggered price increases in Q1, so moving to Q2, we do expect [average sale prices] to increase and units from an elasticity perspective to be impacted," Bonfig said. "We did bring in more inventory in Q1, which you can see on our balance sheet, which does help us to mitigate it." Soaring memory costs are expected to reduce global personal computer shipments by 10.4% and smartphone shipments by 8.4% in 2026, according to Ranjit Atwal, a senior director analyst at Gartner, citing February research. Gartner also projected that PC prices will increase by 17% and smartphone prices will grow by 13%, compared with 2025 levels. "What's happening this time around, compared to previous times that memory prices have gone up, is the extent with which prices of memory is increasing," Atwal said. "Secondly is the length of time that we think prices will remain high. ... This one is looking like it won't be until the end of 2027 before we get to any type of regional pricing." While the price increases may not be immediately apparent in stores, Atwal said, it's inevitable that the demand will outpace the supply. Some retailers pulled forward inventory in the first quarter in anticipation of the rising prices, he added, but that cushion can only last so long. "It will catch up with everyone," he said. "You end up in a point where you just have no control over what you can do. You have to pass it on, and that's the difference now versus where we were before. The market's more mature as well, so there's an expectation that people are going to buy up anyway." Consumers might not even be aware of the price hikes, Atwal said. Most people upgrade their laptops after four or five years and may not even remember what they previously paid or what the specifications of their old models were, he said. That gap may lead to a somewhat "delayed impact" on consumer behavior, Atwal said, but the eventual effect is bound to hit them soon. So far, Bonfig said, Best Buy isn't seeing any indication that consumers are pulling forward purchases or even that the rising memory costs are affecting their budgets. "What we do with that customer is talk about what they're replacing, talk about what their needs are and talk about how to get them into technology that is going to be substantially better in so many different ways," Bonfig said. "That's really the focus that we will continue to have, to make sure we have that broadness and assortment." A Best Buy spokesperson told CNBC that the company still sees its customers spending and that very few of them are worried about memory. In the first quarter, Best Buy said it saw its ninth consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales in computing. Anthony Chukumba, an analyst at Loop Capital who covers Best Buy, told CNBC he thinks larger retailers such as Best Buy will fare better than smaller ones, because of the market share they hold. As suppliers navigate passing along the added costs, Chukumba said major retailers will have more "leverage" to avoid price hikes for as long as they can. "A lot of times, investors think about things too simplistically, like, 'Oh, rising memory costs because of AI, that must be very bad for Best Buy,'" Chukumba said. "There's just nothing that Best Buy can do about it. ... This is their business, they're always managing these changes, and they're seeing the same stuff that you're seeing, probably before you're seeing it, and in much more detail, and so they manage." Chukumba said he believes the long-term impacts of memory costs won't be as significant as they may seem at the moment. "Because technology is constantly evolving, constantly becoming cheaper, you can have this headwind of higher memory prices, but if you're buying something relative to what you would have bought a year ago, much less two years ago, it's still going to have vastly superior capabilities, and the consumers are none the wiser," he said. It could also hit other retailers, such as Target, Amazon, Costco and Walmart. Target declined to comment on rising memory costs, and Amazon also declined to comment. Costco and Walmart did not respond to requests for comment. Still, the broader risks posed by the memory chip shortage could spell trouble. According to Atwal, the Gartner analyst, the rising costs could lead to consumers holding onto their devices longer, leading to fundamental changes to upgrade cycles for products such as smartphones. "Consumers ... will compromise on what they need, and the vendors are going to find it more difficult to push AI features, which are kind of dependent on this, and typically want a premium for them," Atwal said. Earlier this month, a coalition of organizations including the National Retail Federation wrote a letter to the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments asking the government to examine the "urgent imbalance" of memory chips and the potential for "significant and sustained near-term price increases" for consumers. "The real-world impacts of these trends have already begun to show themselves and threaten to deteriorate rapidly if the situation is not remedied," the letter said. The organizations urged the government to work with memory chipmakers and chip buyers to "protect against harm to consumers, workers, and businesses of all sizes." Jon Gold, NRF's vice president of supply chain and customs policy, told CNBC the trend could lead to a shortage of consumer electronics, in addition to the potential price hikes. "There's always only so much impact that retailers can take on their own, so they've got to work with their vendors the best they can to try and minimize price increases and the impact that's having on consumers," Gold said. "But the bigger impact is the lack of those memory chips is a lack of products potentially." Gold said that if consumers begin to hold on to devices for longer because of price increases and the cost difference for upgrading, it will affect both retailers and suppliers as the consumer electronics market stagnates. "Unfortunately, it's one more complicated factor for a retailer and others who are making long-term plans and who are making contracts six, nine, 12 months in advance," Gold said. "It's very complicated and very complex and more pressure on retailers and manufacturers." 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Apple Raises Prices on Macs and iPads Amid the A.I. Boom

The tech giant cited the soaring costs of memory and storage chips as it increased prices more than $200 on some devices. Apple on Thursday raised the prices of its Macs and iPads, citing the soaring costs of memory and storage chips as the artificial intelligence boom has created a frenzy for the components. Apple increased prices on some laptop and tablet models $200 or more. A base model of the MacBook Pro, for example, now costs $1,999, up from $1,699. Apple's entry-level laptop, the MacBook Neo, now costs $699, $100 higher than when it was unveiled in March. The price of an iPad Air increased $150 to $749, while the price of an iPad Pro jumped $200 to $1,199. The increases show that even Apple, with its sprawling supply chain, is not immune to a global shortage in memory and storage chips. A.I. chipmakers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices have demanded more of the components for their own chips, which are then used in data centers for developing and running A.I. systems. The surge in demand has led memory chip manufacturers like Micron to focus on producing for data centers, which tend to use more expensive chips than consumer electronics. As a result, those companies are making more money but shipping fewer consumer-grade chips, which have become more expensive. Memory and storage chip prices have quadrupled over the past year, according to analyst estimates, and the cost of those components are expected to continue to rise. Those costs are now being passed on to consumers. Microsoft also raised prices for its Surface laptops in April. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," a spokesman for Apple said in a statement. "We have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices." Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, said during an investor call in April that the company expected "significantly higher memory costs" for the quarter, which runs through June. "Beyond the June quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business," Mr. Cook said on the call. The company also said it expected its profit margins to decline slightly for the quarter. Apple on Thursday also raised the prices of its HomePod speaker and its Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The timing for the price increases was unusual. Apple typically raises prices when it releases new or refreshed products. Last September, Apple released new iPhones and raised the prices for some models $100.

Why tech firms are raising PC and console prices - and blaming AI for chip costs

For years, buyers of tech could rely on a familiar trend - that older devices would get cheaper over time. That now seems to have stopped, or in some cases, completely reversed. Apple and Microsoft's Xbox have joined the firms hiking prices for devices and games consoles which are years old. They and other tech companies have pointed to the rising cost of crucial components needed to build their machines, laying the blame on AI. Compute-hungry data centres, which power AI, need more and more chips to keep up with demand from AI companies - which means the demand for them is far outstripping supply. Some people have called it "Ramageddon" - as random access memory (Ram), a once-cheap part of any computer, has now shot up in price. But big tech's Ram woes are failing to gain the sympathy of many consumers facing eye-watering costs for barely-new electronics. Apple has raised the prices of its tablets and laptops by nearly 20%. The news was swiftly followed by Microsoft saying it would yet again raise the price of its five-year-old Xbox Series S and X consoles by at least $100 (£75.70). The pricing changes, which will take effect from August, are its third in just over a year - and see the cost of a new console be 30% to 40% more expensive than it was this time last year. "Xbox with another hardware price increase? I gotta laugh to keep from crying," wrote one X user reacting to Xbox's console price hikes. "My favorite hobby is cooked." On Reddit, another user responding to the news said Xbox "may as well just cancel" its upcoming console Helix "because no one will be able to afford it". Investors may not have been too overjoyed, either. Apple's share price took a tumble following the announcement of its price bumps on Thursday. Yang Wang, principal analyst at Counterpoint Research, called the memory crisis "the most disruptive supply-side event the smartphone industry has ever faced". The iPhone has so far been shielded from price hikes, and Wang said premium phone makers such as Apple and Samsung were "better positioned to weather the disruption". But Apple was part of a wider sell-off of tech stocks, amid concerns AI investment would impact device sales. And these companies are by no means alone. Nintendo has said it would raise the Switch 2's price globally from September. Valve recently launched its new Steam Machine gaming PC with a higher price than expected, starting its announcement with a long explanation about spiking component costs. It has already raised the cost of its handheld Steam Deck by 40% for similar reasons in May. The companies blame AI. Apple's announcement on Thursday, which cited an "unprecedented challenge" with memory chips facing the industry, has been seen by several analysts as indicating that the cost of massive AI investment is finally coming to bear. It is no secret that AI developers are seeking to capitalise on excitement about generative AI tech, claiming it can deliver productivity boosts and help firms make more profit. But to do so means building giant data centres filled with racks of powerful servers to enable high-speed processing of heavy AI workloads. They use some of the same raw ingredients needed to make our smaller consumer devices, such as computer chips. Once an affordable component used to build devices, Ram prices more than doubled in price between October 2025 and the start of 2026. "The race to build out AI data centres is resulting in a swift and significant increase in demand that chip makers are rushing to meet," said Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at investment firm AJ Bell. She said such demand was enabling big chip makers such as TSMC to raise prices "knowing that customers are vying with each other for production capacity". Prices of popular memory kits like DDR4 and its bandwidth-boosting successor the DDR5 have shot up accordingly. According to Counterpoint Research, some 32GB DDR5 components for PCs jumped from $94 in the three months to September 2025 to $127 in the next three months. In the first quarter of 2026, spanning the start January to the end of March, the same components had soared 122% to $282. Since then Dram, which provides a sort of short term memory for devices to facilitate what you do on them in real-time, and Nand flash - long-term memory that stores data even when a device is turned off - have climbed further in price. RSM UK's tech senior analyst James Bull noted that the four largest US tech firms are expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centres and AI equipment in 2026. "That level of demand for memory chips has created a shortage the supply chain cannot keep pace with," he said. With big tech and AI firms buying memory at scale, and able to pay a premium for longer contracts, manufacturers were also being incentivised to prioritise their orders over consumer electronics, Bull added. "Essentially, the MacBook on consumers' desks is now competing for the same Dram as the data centres powering ChatGPT and is losing." Of course, some of the big tech companies, such as Microsoft, have a foot in both camps - investing billions in AI infrastructure while also making consumer products such as the Xbox. But the memory shortage and price rises have also been compounded by inflation and geopolitical issues, say some. When Sony announced further price increases to the PS5 console in the UK and elsewhere around the world, it cited "continued pressures in the global economic landscape". Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis said at the time that alongside rising Ram prices, further waves of inflation linked to the war in Iran might have influenced the scale of Sony's price increases. Hewson told the BBC more recent price hikes could "go even higher as chip makers deal with increased costs resulting from the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz". "Whilst the last few days have brought renewed optimism that the situation in the Middle East is being resolved, the impact of the last couple of months means some inflation is now baked in," she added. However, some have been more cynical about big tech firms reaping billions in annual revenue putting up product prices. Prominent left-wing US senator Bernie Sanders was among those criticising Apple's move on Thursday - writing in a post on X that it amounted to "corporate greed". Apple reported its revenue in the last three months of 2025 rose by 16% compared to the same period the previous year to $144bn (£109bn) - its strongest growth since 2021. But the tech giant is not alone in raising prices, with many analyst firms expecting others will follow suit. Counterpoint's VP of research Neil Shah expects a "constrained supply situation" to last for as long as two years. Not all companies are suffering, though. The AI boom has created a windfall of sorts for some chip makers, including American company Micron, which reported on Wednesday that its quarterly revenue had quadrupled. "Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand," Micron's boss Sanjay Mehrotra told investors on Wednesday. In the mean time, gamers and tech fans can expect prices to stay high - or even continue to rise. 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Apple raises Mac and iPad prices as the AI memory crunch reaches the shelf

Tim Cook calls the increases "unavoidable" as data centres swallow the memory supply that consumer devices used to rely on. The AI boom has been an abstract thing for most consumers, a story about data centres and model launches happening somewhere else. This week it arrived somewhere concrete: the price of a Mac. Apple is raising prices on Macs and iPads to offset the soaring cost of memory and storage chips, the bill for an industry-wide shortage that the company says it can no longer absorb on its customers' behalf. Tim Cook, who hands the chief executive role to John Ternus on 1 September, put it plainly. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," he told The Wall Street Journal. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable." The cause is memory, and the culprit is AI. Demand for the memory and storage chips that go into servers has surged as companies race to build out AI infrastructure, and that demand is hoovering up supply that used to flow to consumer devices. By one widely cited estimate, data centres are expected to consume as much as 70% of total memory production in 2026. For every ten chips coming off a line, seven head to server farms, leaving phone makers, PC builders, and the rest of consumer electronics to compete over the remaining three. Cook reached for a flood metaphor to describe the scale of it. He likened the shortage to a hundred-year flood, and said he had never seen anything like it in over 40 years in the industry. Coming from a chief executive who built his reputation on supply-chain mastery, the comparison carries some weight: this is the operations specialist saying the operations problem is outside the normal range. Some of the increase has already landed. Apple raised the entry price of the Mac mini from $599 to $799, not by relabelling the same machine but by eliminating its lowest-tier model, which has the same effect on the shelf. It is the cleanest example so far of how the squeeze reaches buyers: not always as a higher sticker on the same product, sometimes as the quiet disappearance of the cheaper option. Cook did not specify which other products will rise, or by how much. Macs and iPads are flagged as next. The iPhone is also exposed: the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, due in September, could carry higher prices than the current 17 Pro line, though Apple has not confirmed figures. What makes this awkward for Apple is that it is, in a sense, paying for its own industry's success. The same AI demand that has lifted the broader technology sector is now raising the cost of the components in a laptop. The bill for the buildout has reached the checkout, and for the first time in a while, Apple has decided its customers will see it.

Apple is raising prices. Will iPhones be next?

Apple iPhone 17 models on display at an Apple Store in New York in September. (Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images) Apple raised prices on some of its most popular computer products by as much as $500 on Thursday, citing the increasing costs of memory chips driven by the AI boom. Although the company kept the price of the iPhone steady, analysts predict the new model released this fall will get a price hike. The chip squeeze primarily affects components that store memory, including RAM, a device's temporary working memory, as well as the technology used for long-term storage in phones, tablets and laptops. Apple is the latest consumer tech company to raise prices because of chip costs, following other computer and game manufacturers. Analysts suggested that consumers consider buying iPhones now if they want to avoid a price increase. Nabila Popal, an analyst at the tech research company IDC, said in a note to customers Thursday morning that new iPhones will probably be more expensive, on the order of $100 to $200. The iPhone 18 series is expected to begin rolling out in September, the month when Apple usually releases new devices. "If consumers are psychologically prepared for higher prices, it won't impact sales," Popal wrote. "Plus, an earlier announcement means the story at the fall launch is no longer the price hike, but the added value of the new devices." Avi Greengart, a consumer technology analyst, said the broader price hikes were expected given skyrocketing chip prices, but they could still surprise consumers. "Psychologically, this is probably going to be a bigger shock to consumers than the rising price of eggs, for example, because sometimes eggs go up in price, whereas technology historically is deflationary. It gets cheaper over time," he said. He added that the price of Apple's current flagship phone, the iPhone 17, might even stay the same, rather than decreasing, when the new iPhone 18 is announced. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. "We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions." The hikes include an extra $100 for the MacBook Neo, the entry-level laptop announced earlier this year as Apple's cheapest-ever computer. MacBook Air and Pro models are now $300 to $500 more expensive. IPads are also going up $100 to $200, depending on the model. However, the prices for AirPods, which have no memory, and Apple Watches remained the same. AI companies have vacuumed up memory chips in recent months for their models, both to train them and to meet growing consumer demand. In announcing quarterly earnings this week, executives from chipmaker Micron said they expected the memory shortage to last through 2027. Other consumer technology companies like Nintendo and Dell have also raised prices in recent months. Microsoft announced Thursday that it would increase the prices of its Xbox gaming consoles by $100 to $150 starting Aug. 1, also citing pressures on storage and memory components. The company will sunset its console with two terabytes of memory, the largest of its Xbox lineup. It had previously upped prices in October.

Your Mac and iPad prices just went up, here's why AI data centers are to blame

Apple just announced unprecedented price increases for the majority of its product lineup, with only iPhone and Apple Watch not yet seeing a price hike. This is because of the AI-driven memory crisis, caused by AI data centers buying up loads of memory supply, putting tons of pressure on the market. Apple tried to hold out for quite a while, but the situation got out of hand. It's worth noting that these memory pressures have existed for the entirety of the year, and it's only now getting to the point where it's unsustainable. Nonetheless, we'll be diving into the why of it all, and when you should expect things to get better. Memory supply pressures As outlined by outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple simply couldn't sustain its existing prices anymore with the sudden surges: "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," he said. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable." As mentioned earlier, this has been exclusively caused by the construction of gigantic AI data centers, which have put tremendous pressure on memory supply. For instance, 32GB of DDR5 memory has essentially quadrupled in price in the past year, with a 6000MHz kit that used to cost under $90 now going for nearly $400. That's just to give an idea of consumer pricing - which isn't necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison. Apple uses higher-end memory, and also has added cost from the complexity that comes from soldering it onto the die of the chipset, rather than having it be a separate component. Will it get better? At some point, yes, it'll get better - but it's hard to say how long it'll take. Micron, a leading memory supplier, has started building a couple new memory fabs across the US, and they're expected to start coming online over the next couple years - with the final one being up and running by 2030. They're just one supplier, but any additional supply will help tremendously. Apple, on the other hand, has started a new lobbying effort to compel the US government to allow them to do business with a handful of currently-blacklisted Chinese memory suppliers. Apple technically isn't blocked from buying this memory, but it'd be a massive issue with government officials using Apple devices. If Apple had additional memory supply that wasn't highly sought after by AI hyperscalers, this could make a difference in the near future. Otherwise, the primary hope is just that AI buildout slows down. At the moment, things are likely to continue to get worse before they get better. In Q3 and Q4 of 2026, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 30-50% is expected. Apple has already hinted that there may be more price increases in the future, though it's possible they're only referring to products that haven't already had price increases. Overall, I'd say expect a rough 2-4 years, unless Apple succeeds in their efforts to utilize Chinese memory. It'll still be rough, but maybe we can see some slight reductions if that pans out. What you can do At this point, all I can say is that if you want something new, you're probably better off buying it now, and I'd also recommend warning people around you. Of course, if your device works fine, then don't rush into upgrading just because of a medium-term price increase. For the meanwhile, Amazon is still selling existing inventory of Mac and iPad at lower prices. These prices aren't as low as they were on Prime Day, but they're still much lower than the new prices after the official hikes. I'll list out some of the deals below. Mac: * MacBook Air 13-inch (M5, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM) - $1149 on Amazon (vs $1599 at Apple) * MacBook Air 15-inch (M5, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM) - $1249 on Amazon (vs $1499 at Apple) * MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM) - $1649 on Amazon (vs $1999 at Apple) * MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Pro, 1TB SSD, 24GB RAM) - $2149 on Amazon (vs $2499 at Apple) * MacBook Pro 16-inch (M5 Pro, 1TB SSD, 24GB RAM) - $2649 on Amazon (vs $2999 at Apple) * MacBook Neo and Mac mini are currently unavailable from Amazon at the time of writing. iPad: * iPad (A16, 128GB) - $349 on Amazon (vs $449 at Apple) * iPad Pro 11-inch (M5, 256GB, Wi-Fi + Cellular) - $1199 on Amazon (vs $1399 at Apple) * iPad Pro 13-inch (M5, 512GB, Wi-Fi) - $1349 on Amazon (vs $1699 at Apple) * Most iPad configurations have already seen major price increases on Amazon - these are the best remaining ones. It does really suck looking at all of these much higher prices, especially given that Apple had largely become one of the best value options on the market over the past year. Of course, these price hikes aren't in a vacuum, and the rest of the industry will deal with the memory crisis as well. My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:

Apple's pricing woes will worsen through 2027, report claims

AI server infrastructure demand is diverting memory from consumer electronics, forcing Apple to lobby for access to blacklisted Chinese suppliers. Having held steady for months while the rest of the industry increased prices in response to the ongoing RAM crisis, Apple finally and dramatically gave way last week. Macs and iPads saw increases of anywhere from $100 to more than $500, a move the company insisted was the result of unprecedented rises in the cost of components. Commentators questioned the magnitude of the increases but some form of price rise was inevitable. The burgeoning demand for AI server infrastructure is seeing more and more memory siphoned away from consumer electronics and into giant data centers. And a new report indicates that the situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. In a Twitter/X post on Sunday, the respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo discussed his latest industry checks, which make for gloomy reading for anyone planning to buy a Mac (or other Apple product) in the near future. It's not just about high prices, either. Apple shoppers could also see delivery times lengthen as the company struggles to get enough components to meet demand. "The memory supply-demand gap will keep widening through 2027," Kuo writes. "Of the memory capacity allocated to consumer electronics in 2026, an estimated 15-20% is expected to shift to data centers in 2027, and that share could grow... Due to tight memory supply, Apple's actual pull-in volume of A20 chips in 2H26-1Q27 could be 10-20% below its original target." Officially, the A20 chip doesn't exist yet, but that's the processor on which the iPhone 18 Pro will be based when it launches this fall. And that suggests that the unpopular Mac and iPad price rises could be followed by even more unpopular iPhone price rises (and/or stock shortages) in due course. This isn't the first indicator that the RAM crisis may have a year or more still to go-one analyst recently predicted it wouldn't start to ease until 2028-but there's a new pessimism to the idea that it will actively get worse through next year. Apple's response to the situation isn't just to raise its prices, as drastic a step as that was when it finally came. It's also making full use of its considerable political influence, lobbying the Trump administration for clearance to buy memory from the Pentagon-blacklisted Chinese company ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT). As Kuo notes, Apple CEO Tim Cook has rare leverage in both Washington and Beijing, but his argument that the deal needs to be finalised before Cook steps down as CEO in September may be wide of the mark. Cook will stay with the company beyond that point, and it is likely that his day-to-day duties as chairman will include more lobbying than currently, not less. But as Kuo astutely points out, the deal doesn't necessarily need to be signed in order for Apple to benefit: merely the attempt makes for good PR. "Even if the effort goes nowhere," he writes, "the media coverage can still leave the market with the impression that Apple tried but was constrained by U.S. policy. That may help ease frustration over price hikes and longer delivery times."

Apple Explains Why It Raised Prices on These 14 Products Today

Apple today raised prices on many of its products, including all Macs and iPads, as well as the Apple TV, HomePod, HomePod mini, and Vision Pro. We shared a list of the price increases, which range from $30 for the HomePod mini to up to $1,300 for the Mac Studio. iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods prices have not changed, at least for now. In a statement shared with MacRumors, Apple said it raised prices because of the ongoing memory chip shortage, resulting from companies like OpenAI and Nvidia building out data centers with powerful AI servers. The supply-demand imbalance has led to skyrocketing prices for RAM and SSD storage chips used in a wide range of Apple products. Apple's full statement: The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly. We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions. Apple indicating that it needs to "begin" raising prices suggests that additional price increases might occur later. On the other hand, Apple noting that it is "working tirelessly to find solutions" suggests that prices might eventually come down again. Apple is far from the only tech company that has raised prices in response to the memory chip shortage, with others including Microsoft, Samsung, Lenovo, HP, Dell, and more. Memory chip supplier Micron expects the shortage to last through 2027, so elevated prices could be the norm for another year and a half or longer.

Apple's price hike choice almost guarantees more expensive iPhones as the RAM crisis is far from over: 'We are not at the bottom and will take more time to climb out,' expert says

We now know with more certainty than before that your next iPhone, especially if it's a more affordable model, will probably be more expensive come September. Allow me to walk you back through my reasoning. At approximately 8:30AM ET the RAM crisis reached Apple shores in the form of price hikes across multiple product categories, including MacBooks, Macs, iPads, and HomePods. It was inevitable and, as Apple told us, the culprit is clear: "The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage." It's the component crunch we've seen repeated over and over again. Everything from the latest gaming rigs to storage and memory is getting more expensive. And it's only going to get worse. "We are not at the bottom and will take more time to climb out," wrote Creative Strategies Founder and longtime analyst Tim Bajarin when I asked him via email if this marked a tipping point for our RAM crisis travails. It did feel like Apple held off as long as possible, and I think Bajarin concurs, "Apple had no choice," he wrote to me. No RAM crisis end in sight Not only does Bajarin see the issue continuing, but he thinks it could drag on for years. As he wrote in his recent Forbes column, with just a few major memory factories already "maxed out" and those under construction years away from coming online, "I see this memory squeeze at the least lasting another two years," he told me via email. This aligns, by the way, with reports we've seen elsewhere from those who run these memory plants. "We expect tight conditions to persist beyond calendar 2027 as a result of AI-driven demand across all segments coupled with structural supply constraints," said Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in a recent earnings report. We've all been wondering if and when the RAM crisis would affect iPhone prices, and while the fresh price hikes miss out iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods, Apple's comment on why it raised the prices now, makes it clear that they're probablly not done: "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac." Did you pick up the key phrase? "need to begin raising prices". Apple didn't say, "we've raised the prices," and instead opened the door to further hikes. Those price increases might come to the full lineups in affected product categories, but I believe that this issue will affect the anticipated iPhone 18 launch in September. But wait. It gets worse. An affordability crisis Bajarin says the price/performance trajectory we've seen for decades (more and faster/better tech for lower prices) is, with this component crisis reversing itself, making it harder to build affordable devices, or rather devices at affordable prices, because one of the key components is exponentially more expensive than ever. We already have some evidence of this with Nothing cancelling its affordable model in response to RAM crisis. This means that those who usually buy the iPhone Pro, iPhone Pro Max, and iPhone Air might easily absorb higher prices because they can probably already afford them. It's with base models like the anticipated iPhone 18 where a dramatic increase could push the phone out of reach. This will, by the way, affect Android phones too (see Nothing, above), especially, Bajarin notes, those affordable handsets sold around the world. You see, they all source their memory from the same handful of suppliers. It's all in shorter supply and more expensive. In the end, if any of us thought Apple could hold out indefinitely and show the industry a way around this AI-led RAM crisis (the AI boom isn't slowing down, and its demands on energy, water, and memory will probably only increase), they were mistaken. Apple isn't magic, RAM doesn't grow on trees, and we're in for a very rough couple of years. A look at all the Apple price hikes Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Australians to pay at least 20% more for iPads and Macbooks after Apple hikes prices citing AI

Apple Macbook 13-inch prices jumps from $1,799 to $2,099 while the cost of iPads surge by 25% Australians woke up on Friday to higher prices for Macbooks and iPads after Apple hiked worldwide, blaming an AI-driven cost crunch for computer parts. The iPhone range was unaffected but experts predict Apple will raise prices for its flagship product later this year. Microsoft also lifted its Xbox prices overnight amid a wave of increases for phones and devices. Apple's MacBook Air with a 13-inch display now starts at $2,099, up from $1,799, on the Australian website, while the MacBook Pro 14-inch starts at $3,199 on Apple's site. Both were available for the cheaper price from other retailers as of Friday afternoon however. There are no longer MacBooks available from Apple for under $1,000. The smaller MacBook Neo, which arrived in Australia in March at $899, now starts at $1,049 from Apple. Apple said at the time the Neo was its "most affordable laptop ever". The iPad starts at $749, from $599, while the mini model starts at $949, from $799, the Air at $1249, from $999, and the pro starts at $1,999, from $1,699. The iMac desktop now starts at $2,399 and the Mac Studio at $4,299. Australia retailers have yet to pass on the price increase. Officeworks' prices were unchanged on Friday morning. JB Hi-Fi promoted Apple deals at the top of its website on Friday, with sales on the MacBook Air 13-inch at $1,597, Macbook Pro 14-inch at $2,797 and the iPad at $495. The tech retailer has warned the rising demand for computers chips as the world rapidly increases computing power and AI usage has pushed up device costs. Its chief executive, Nick Wells, told analysts in February the cost crunch was resulting in 20% price rises for PCs and phones were vulnerable to the same price hikes. The iPhone 17 Pro still starts at $1,999 and the Pro Max at $2,199 on Apple's website. Wells in February said iPhones could be hit from September, when the iPhone 18 models are set to be released. Apple said it had absorbed rising computer part costs but had now reached a point where it had to raise prices. Its share price fell 6.15% on Thursday, US time, wiping US$250bn from its market value to close at US$4.04tn. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. Microsoft on Thursday US time also announced it would lift Xbox console prices by US$100 (A$145) for 512 GB models and US$150 (A$218) for 1 TB models and cease selling the 2 TB model. In a statement, the company said storage and memory prices had nearly tripled and were set to double again by late 2027. "We hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options," Microsoft said. Datacentres use up significant quantities of memory chips and booming development has led to a shortage dubbed the "RAMageddon". An International Data Corporation analyst, Soo Kyoum Kim, warned in a note on Monday the shortage was permanently rewriting the economics of consumer device production. "The real question is whether the product economics of affordable devices can be rebuilt around structurally higher memory costs, or whether product mix and [prices] shift permanently upward," Kim said.

The AI price shock is here: Apple, Microsoft hike prices

That's now becoming increasingly apparent to ordinary Americans who might have thought that AI's impact would be primarily on their jobs. Driving the news: Apple provided the clearest evidence yet Thursday, raising prices by as much as 25% on MacBook and iPad models -- and blaming soaring memory chip costs due to AI demand. * The same memory squeeze is now hitting gaming consoles. Also on Thursday, Microsoft announced price increases of as much as $150 on Xbox consoles -- which comes after Sony and Nintendo recently made similar moves. * Storage and memory costs have more than doubled since last fall, Microsoft said, forcing the price increases because consoles aren't sold with enough margin to absorb those higher costs. The big picture: For now, the AI boom is moving through the economy less like a sudden wave of layoffs and more like a giant buyer of scarce resources, including electricity, water, storage and data-center space as well as chips. * It's an "unprecedented challenge" for device makers like Apple, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. * Consumer gadgets were one of the few places where prices reliably fell over time over the past few decades. The AI infrastructure boom is reversing that norm. What they're saying: "The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. * "The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles," which "are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make," Microsoft said in a statement. The intrigue: Prices for computer software and accessories jumped a record 14.5% in May from a year earlier, ending a quarter-century era in which those products almost always got cheaper. * The category includes storage devices like flash drives that have memory chips. What to watch: The potential labor market effects of AI may still be huge. Companies are testing how much work can be automated, with any job impact becoming clearer over time. * Yet pocketbook issues may steal the limelight from worries over jobs. * Already, AI data centers have fueled a growing political backlash from residents worried about higher utility bills. The bottom line: Americans have been wondering how the technology would change the economics of their lives. The first place many are feeling it may be their wallets.

Apple blames inflationary effect of AI for price hikes: 'We have never seen a component price increase this much' | Fortune

The Cupertino, California-based company called the demand spike an "unprecedented challenge" for the consumer electronics industry. "The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," the company said in a written statement. The new, entry-level MacBook Neo will now cost $699, up from $599. The 512 gigabyte MacBook Air now costs $1,299, up from $1,099. The one terabyte MacBook Pro is $1,999, up from $1,699. The 128 gigabyte iPad Air is now $749, up from $599, while the 256 gigabyte iPad Pro Wifi is now $1,199, up from $999. Analysts expect iPhone prices to rise later this year. IDC analyst Nabila Popal said the latest price hikes were higher than she had expected, which suggests the iPhone price hikes may also be higher than expected, perhaps as much as $200 for the iPhone Pro and Pro Max models. "I think the days of $50 price increases are over," she said. Apple said that while it has shielded customers from the component price surges so far, "we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions." Shares of Apple fell $13.29, or 4.5%, to $279.88 on Thursday afternoon.

Apple raises prices for MacBooks and iPads, as costs soar over AI

San Francisco (United States) (AFP) - Apple said Thursday it was raising prices for its MacBook computers, iPad tablets and other products, citing spiraling memory and storage costs sparked by the rise of artificial intelligence. The price hikes -- the first concrete change stemming from outgoing CEO Tim Cook's repeated warnings about rising costs -- sent Apple shares plummeting more than 4.7 percent in morning trade. On its US website, price increases ranged from $30 to $300. The 14-inch MacBook Pro, which once sold for $1,700, now retails for $2,000, while the iPad Air increased from $600 to $750. The Apple TV streaming device rose from $130 to $200. For now, the price of the iPhone -- the company's main source of revenue -- remained unchanged. "The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement sent to multiple media outlets. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly." Apple did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment. The Cupertino, California-based tech giant -- which notched an all-time revenue record of $416 billion in the last fiscal year -- insisted it had "shielded our customers from these increases so far" but could no longer do so. Last week, Cook set the stage when he told The Wall Street Journal that price increases were "unavoidable." "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases," Cook said, deeming the spike in prices a "hundred-year flood." The rapid buildout of AI data centers has sent the cost of memory chips and RAM skyrocketing -- as the components are found in nearly all electronic devices -- with the chips undergoing quarterly price increases of at least 50 percent since late 2025. It will fall to John Ternus to handle the fallout at Apple -- he will succeed Cook as CEO on September 1, just days before the new generation of iPhones is unveiled.

AI boom sends Xbox, Mac and iPad prices soaring

Microsoft and Apple are raising prices for Xbox consoles, Macs and iPads as the AI boom sends memory chip costs soaring, with prices increasing by up to $300 (about €265) and as much as 25%, depending on the product. Microsoft said on Thursday it will raise the price of its Xbox video game consoles worldwide by between $100 and $150 from 1 August, blaming soaring storage and memory costs driven by AI-related demand. Editor's note: Euro figures are approximate conversions based on today's exchange rate and do not reflect official pricing from the companies. In the United States, the cheapest Xbox, the Series S, will increase to $500 (about €440) this summer, while the Series X will cost as much as $800 (about €705). The company has not yet released prices for Europe, where the Series X currently sells for about €600. The 2TB model will be discontinued. This is the third price increase for Xbox after a worldwide hike in May 2025 and another increase, limited to the United States, in October. Consumer electronics manufacturers have all been affected by rising component costs. In recent months, Sony and Nintendo have also raised the prices of their game consoles, and Apple announced on Thursday substantial price increases for its Macs and iPads. Apple begins AI-driven price rises after earlier warning Apple on Thursday followed through on chief executive Tim Cook's warning earlier this month that price rises had become "unavoidable", announcing higher prices for Macs and iPads as AI-driven demand for memory chips continues to push up costs. In Thursday's announcement, the Cupertino-based company described the demand spike as an "unprecedented challenge" for the consumer electronics industry. In a written statement cited by AP, Apple said: "The rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly." The new entry-level MacBook Neo will cost $100 (about €90) more, while the 512GB MacBook Air and the 256GB iPad Pro Wi-Fi will each cost an extra $200 (about €175). The 1TB MacBook Pro will become $300 (about €265) more expensive, while the 128GB iPad Air will cost an additional $150 (about €130). Analysts expect iPhone prices to rise later this year. IDC analyst Nabila Popal said the latest increases were larger than expected, suggesting iPhone prices could also rise more sharply than anticipated, perhaps by as much as $200 (about €175) for the iPhone Pro and Pro Max models. "I think the days of $50 price increases are over," she said. Apple said in the written statement cited by AP that while it had shielded customers from the component price surge until now, "we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPads and Macs. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions." Apple shares fell $13.29, or 4.5%, to $279.88 in afternoon trading on Thursday. AI boom reshapes the economics of consumer electronics The accelerated construction of data centres for AI training and applications has sent the cost of memory and storage chips soaring. These components are used in virtually all electronic devices. This market, dominated by giants such as South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix and US-based Micron, has suffered major supply shortages for several months, driving prices higher. The cost of storage and memory chips has more than doubled and is expected to double again by late 2027, Microsoft said on Thursday. The Redmond-based company also noted that consoles, unlike phones or computers, "are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make." Its Japanese rival Sony raised the price of its PlayStation 5 by €100 in Europe in early April, bringing the standard version to €650. Nintendo has announced a price increase of more than 6% from 1 September for its Switch 2. On Monday, US-based company Valve launched its new Steam Machine at more than $1,000 (about €880) for the base version, making it more expensive than expected. The third-largest console maker after Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft had previously cut the price of its Xbox Game Pass subscription in April, which players considered too expensive. Microsoft's gaming division, which accounted for about 8% of its revenue during fiscal year 2025, underwent a major restructuring in February amid declining revenue, particularly from Xbox sales, and the disappointing performance of new games.

Gadget prices have fallen for decades. Then AI happened.

Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. She previously worked at "60 Minutes," CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program. After decades of declining costs, consumer electronics ranging from computers to video game consoles are jumping in price as the artificial intelligence boom drives a global shortage of memory and storage chips. "The vast majority of the chips are going to the AI buildout and the data center revolution we're seeing," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CBS News. "That's [fewer] chips for these regular consumer devices. That just further drives up prices." On Thursday, Apple and Microsoft each said they were hiking prices on core products, including iPads, certain MacBook models and Xbox consoles, as strong demand for chips drives up the cost of electronic device components. Apple could also raise iPhone prices to offset rising manufacturing costs, according to analysts at market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC analyst Nabila Popal said Apple's price hikes were higher than she had expected. That suggests any iPhone price increases may also be higher than expected, perhaps as much as $200 for the iPhone Pro and Pro Max models. "I think the days of $50 price increases are over," she said. The rise in gadget prices is unusual, as the cost of personal computers and other personal electronics has generally fallen since the 1980s. The latest government inflation data show that prices for computer software and accessories have surged by more than 14% over the last year. Personal computers, such as tablets, home assistants and computer hardware, are up 1.3%. What's behind the chip shortage? The three biggest memory chip manufacturers -- Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix -- have historically produced semiconductors for devices such as smartphones and for other consumer products such as cars. But those chipmakers are now racing to meet surging demand from Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Oracle and other tech giants -- dubbed "hyperscalers" -- that need memory chips for the thousands of data centers they are building to provide a range of AI services. "Basically, we ended up with a situation where those companies, the hyperscalers, started buying the entire capacity from those suppliers" at premium prices, Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for data and analytics at IDC, told CBS News. Historically, most of Micron, SK and Samsung's chip production focused on churning out so-called DRAM and NAND semiconductors, the standard memory chips used in smartphones, PCs and other electronics. But semiconductor manufacturers are now devoting more resources to producing so-called high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used to provide memory for data centers. For semiconductor makers, HBM chips are more profitable to produce than those used in personal devices, Jeronimo said. Manufacturers effectively said, "What is the point of selling and making memory for smartphones or PCs or any other device when we have this huge opportunity for many years to come?" he added. Last year, for example, Boise, Idaho-based chipmaker Micron Technology abandoned consumer chip production altogether, framing the decision as a necessary move to meet surging demand tied to AI growth. As memory and storage supply shrinks amid rising AI demand, chip prices have risen, spurring companies like Apple and Microsoft to pass those costs onto consumers, Jeronimo said, describing the current chip shortage as "way worse" than the supply disruptions during the pandemic caused by factory closures. "There's no more stock," he said. "Every single memory [chip] they buy, it costs 100% to 200% more than six or 12 months ago." Wedbush Securities estimates that there are 15 times as many memory chip orders from tech companies as there are available chips. Meanwhile, boosting chip supplies is difficult due to manufacturers' limited production capacity and the enormous expense of building semiconductor fabrication facilities, which can cost $10 billion and take up to five years to complete. "You can't just snap your fingers and release more memory chips," Ives said. How long could the chip shortage last? Tech analysts and economists predict the chip shortage will persist at least through 2027 and perhaps later, citing the time required to expand or build new plants. In the meantime, consumers can expect prices to continue rising. Tech research firm Gartner forecasts that PC and smartphone prices could jump 17% and 13%, respectively, this year from their 2025 levels because of rising chip costs. Higher prices could cause consumers to hold onto devices longer, denting smartphone sales, according to Jeronimo. Ives advises consumers to buy their next electronic device now before prices rise further. "We're going to continue to see price increases...especially going into the holiday season," he told CBS News.

Apple's Macs and iPads and Microsoft's Xbox consoles are getting more expensive, and AI is to blame

Apple's Macs and iPads and Microsoft's Xbox consoles are getting more expensive, and AI is to blame The surging cost of memory chips has translated into a bonanza for companies like Micron Technologies Inc., but for almost everyone else there's going to be a steep price to pay, with both Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. raising the price of some of their most popular products today. First came Apple, which announced this morning that it's increasing the prices of its Mac computers and iPad tablet devices, just a week after outgoing Chief Executive Tim Cook said soaring component costs would leave it with no alternative. It was followed hours later by Microsoft, which revealed a significant price hike for the Xbox video game console. The iPhone maker briefly took the Apple Online Store offline in the morning, in a move that normally signifies the launch of a new product. But the only new thing that appeared when it returned was significantly higher prices on some existing devices, with iPad models now costing between 15% and 25% more, and Mac prices rising by between 15% and 20%. Apple said the MacBook Air laptop will now cost $1,299 after receiving a $200 price hike, while its most affordable model, the entry-level MacBook Neo, now costs $699, up $100. The price of the flagship MacBook Pro meanwhile has increased $300 to $1,999. As for the iPads, the heavy-duty iPad Pro model now comes with a $1,199 price tag, up $200, while the iPad Air has a new price of $749, up by $150. For now, Apple has put off increasing prices for its iPhone handsets, though it hinted that it's considering doing so in the not too distant future. "We have reached a point where we need to begin raising prices," a spokesperson for the company said. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly" Apple's hand was forced by the soaring cost of dynamic random-access memory chips and NAND storage chips, which have become essential components for artificial intelligence servers. The cost of those components has more than quadrupled over the last year, according to data from the research firm TechInsights, and most experts project prices to continue increasing in 2027. Both memory and storage are essential components in everything from smartphones to personal computers, games consoles to cars - basically any "intelligent" device. Cook had warned of an imminent price hike last week when he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that the higher costs of those products had made such a move "unavoidable." In the wake of Apple's move, Microsoft dropped a bombshell on the video gaming world when it said that its Xbox consoles are getting more expensive. It will also be discontinuing the sale of its 2 terabyte model. Gamers have at least been given an early heads up. Starting August 1, the 512 gigabyte Xbox will cost $100 more, while the 1TB models will see prices rise by $150. In a blog post, Microsoft also blamed the price increases on rising memory and storage costs, saying that these components now cost 2.5-times more than they did at the beginning of the year. The company warned that component costs could double again over the next 12 months. The announcements highlight the growing impact of the AI boom on the lives of everyday consumers, who can now expect to pay significantly more money for almost any electronic device. Microsoft has at least tried to soften the blow somewhat, highlighting various financing options for anyone wanting to buy an Xbox, including its Buy Now, Pay Later options through the Microsoft Store. It also said it's working on creating new programs for anyone that wants to buy "previously played consoles at lower prices." "Players who are ready to upgrade or no longer use their console will be able to trade it in with participating retail partners for cash or store credit," the company said. "Those consoles will then be made available at lower prices for players." Apple's and Microsoft's announcements came less than a day after Micron, America's biggest manufacturer of memory and storage chips, delivered record-breaking revenue and profit in its latest quarterly financial report. The company's stock gained more than 16% after revealing a gross profit margin of more than 86% on its memory chip products, and helped trigger a broader rally among semiconductor stocks today. ' In yesterday's earnings call, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said that tight supply conditions are set to persist into 2028, having previously only forecast the situation to last into 2027.

Micron Suggests Apple Played a Role in the Memory Shortage

Apple's spent months pointing to AI's hunger for memory chips as the reason your next MacBook costs more. Now Micron suggests Apple played a role too, just maybe not the one Apple's been describing. Micron's chief business officer, Sumit Sadana, told the Wall Street Journal this week that some of Micron's biggest customers pushed so hard for cheap pricing during the last industry downturn that Micron couldn't justify building new factories. Sadana didn't name names. He didn't have to. Micron supplies the DRAM and NAND chips that go into iPhones, Macs, and iPads. Apple's known for locking suppliers into long-term contracts that hold prices down for years at a time. Sadana told the Journal that aggressive pricing was "not constructive." The timing here is rough for Apple. Sadana's comments landed just two days after Apple raised prices across nearly its entire lineup, citing the same memory shortage it's now getting blamed for helping create. How the Shortage Got This Bad Micron lost money on memory chips during the 2022 and 2023 downturn, when demand collapsed and prices crashed along with it. That stretch is what Sadana's pointing to now. Then AI showed up, and data centers started buying memory by the truckload for their servers. Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix all shifted production toward those higher margin chips. Regular RAM and storage, the kind that goes into phones and laptops, got squeezed out along the way. Nobody at Micron will say outright that Apple played a role in that squeeze. But the timing of Sadana's comments makes the implication pretty hard to miss. Apple raised prices on Macs, iPads, the Apple TV, HomePod, and Vision Pro this week alone. Some models jumped by as much as 20%. Whether Apple played a role in starting this mess or not, it's the one stuck explaining the price tag right now.

Apple Just Confirmed Micron's Biggest AI Prediction - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU)

The price increases affect products including the MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, iPad Air, HomePod, HomePod mini and Apple TV, while iPhone pricing remains unchanged. Apple attributed the increases to tightening supplies of memory and storage components as AI infrastructure spending accelerates. For Micron investors, however, the announcement may represent something more significant: real-world evidence that the AI memory crunch the company has been warning about is beginning to ripple beyond data centers and into consumer electronics. Micron CEO Warned Memory Shortages Would Persist During its fiscal Q3 earnings call, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said the company still sees no clear end to tightening memory markets. "We currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand," Mehrotra told investors. "We expect tight conditions to persist beyond calendar 2027." The executive argued that artificial intelligence has fundamentally reshaped the memory industry, with AI systems requiring increasingly larger amounts of high-performance memory to support training and inference workloads. "Memory has become a strategic asset," Mehrotra said, adding that AI system performance is "architecturally dependent on memory subsystem performance and capacity." AI Data Centers Are Reshaping The Memory Market The connection between Apple's pricing decision and Micron's outlook highlights how AI infrastructure spending is increasingly influencing markets far beyond semiconductors. Cloud providers and AI developers have been aggressively expanding data center capacity to support generative AI applications, fueling demand for advanced DRAM and NAND memory. That demand has helped tighten industry supply, allowing memory manufacturers to secure stronger pricing and long-term customer agreements. Micron recently disclosed that customers have committed approximately $22 billion through strategic agreements, providing additional visibility into future demand as the company ramps production of high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators. If Apple's explanation proves to be an early indication of broader industry trends, the impact of AI-driven memory shortages may no longer be confined to hyperscale data centers. Instead, consumers purchasing everyday devices -- from laptops and tablets to smart-home products -- could increasingly feel the effects of a market Micron believes will remain supply-constrained for years. For investors, Apple's price increases may be the clearest sign yet that Micron's AI memory thesis is beginning to play out beyond the walls of the world's largest data centers. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Apple Raises Prices of MacBooks and iPads in India as Memory Costs Surge

The revised pricing, now reflected on Apple's India website, comes amid rising global memory chip costs and growing demand driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Apple has significantly increased the prices of several MacBook and iPad models in India, with hikes ranging from ₹10,000 to as much as ₹1 lakh. The revised pricing, now reflected on Apple's India website, comes amid rising global memory chip costs and growing demand driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The price revision affects multiple MacBook and iPad variants, while iPhone prices remain unchanged for now. MacBook and iPad Prices See Sharp Increase Among the products witnessing the steepest increases is the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Max), which has become ₹1 lakh more expensive than its earlier price. Other major revisions include: The revised prices are now visible across Apple's official online store in India. Rising Memory Costs Drive Price Revision The increase follows comments from Apple CEO Tim Cook, who recently indicated that rising memory component costs were putting pressure on product pricing. Industry reports suggest that prices of high-capacity memory modules have risen sharply over the past several months. Demand for advanced memory chips has accelerated as AI applications, cloud computing, and high-performance computing require significantly larger amounts of RAM and storage. According to market estimates, prices of certain high-capacity memory chips have increased by more than 60 percent, adding to manufacturing costs for laptop and tablet makers. AI Boom Reshaping Hardware Costs Analysts say the rapid expansion of AI technologies has become one of the biggest drivers of memory demand worldwide. AI servers, data centres, and next-generation computing platforms consume substantially more memory than conventional systems, tightening global supply and pushing up component prices. The trend is affecting hardware manufacturers across the industry, with several companies already revising prices of PCs and enterprise systems in recent months. iPhone Prices Unchanged for Now Apple has not announced any price revision for its iPhone lineup in India. However, industry observers believe smartphone prices could also come under pressure if memory costs remain elevated over the coming months. For consumers planning to purchase Apple devices, the latest revisions mean significantly higher entry prices for premium laptops and tablets, reflecting broader changes in the global semiconductor and AI hardware market.

The AI memory crunch just hiked prices for Xbox gamers

Every gadget in your home reflects a quiet bet a company once made about you. The bet is simple. Build the thing for a certain cost, then price it at whatever you will tolerate paying. Game consoles have always been the strangest version of that bet. For about 20 years, the companies that make them sold the hardware at a loss on purpose. The machine was the hook. The real money came later, from games, subscriptions, and online stores. Make the box cheap, the thinking went, and earn it back for years afterward. That model only worked because of one quiet assumption. The expensive guts inside, especially the memory chips, would keep getting cheaper over time. Cheaper parts meant a smaller loss on every box that went out the door. Now that assumption has cracked. The memory inside your console is not getting cheaper. It is getting scarce and expensive, because artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are buying up nearly all of it. And Microsoft (MSFT) just handed gamers the bill, raising Xbox prices by as much as $150. What the Xbox price increase actually costs you The numbers are blunt. Starting Aug. 1, Xbox console prices rise worldwide, by $100 on 512-gigabyte models and $150 on one-terabyte models, according to Xbox Wire. Microsoft is also retiring its 2-terabyte model. Here is how that lands on the price tags, according to TechCrunch. * Xbox Series S 512GB rises from $399 to $499. * Xbox Series S 1TB rises from $449 to $599. * Xbox Series X 1TB Digital rises from $599 to $750. * Xbox Series X 1TB Disc rises from $649 to $800. When I lined up those new tags against what these machines cost at launch in 2020, the drift was hard to ignore. The disc-based Series X started life at $500. It now costs $800. That is a 60% jump in six years on a product that was never supposed to get more expensive. Microsoft had already nudged U.S. prices up by $20 to $70 last October. This round is far steeper, and it is the third Xbox increase in 13 months, Bloomberg reported, which called the move a "glaring example of the component shortage crisis." Microsoft tried to soften the hit with financing options and a promise to expand cheaper ways to play. The math still points in one direction. SOPA Images / Getty Images How AI data centers drained the memory supply Here is the part that should bug you more than the price tag itself. Microsoft is not raising prices because Xbox suddenly got greedy. It is raising prices because it is losing a bidding war for the chips inside the box. Every console runs on memory chips, the same basic part AI servers are desperate for. Companies building AI systems need staggering amounts of high-speed memory to train and run their models, and they will pay almost anything to get it. So the three companies that make almost all of the world's memory - Micron (MU), SK Hynix, and Samsung - have tilted their factories toward the pricier chips AI customers want. Memory makers are steering capacity to high-bandwidth memory for AI hardware like Nvidia's (NVDA) chips, CNBC reported. : Picture one shared pool of memory that every device on Earth has to draw from. AI is now the biggest buyer in the room, and it does not flinch at the price. That leaves your console fighting for scraps. Data centers are on track to soak up roughly 70% of the world's memory chips this year, according to research firm IDC, as reported by Tom's Hardware. As recently as 2022, that share sat closer at 20% to 30%. Console "storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x," Microsoft said on Xbox Wire, and the company expects them to roughly double again by late 2027. Consoles get hit harder than most gadgets. A phone or a laptop carries a fat profit margin that can quietly absorb a pricier chip. A console sold at a loss has no cushion. When the part gets expensive, the price has to move. Why the memory crunch reaches your next gadget This is far bigger than one black box under your TV. The same squeeze is raising the floor on almost everything with a chip in it. Apple (AAPL) raised prices on Macs and iPads the same day, blaming the same memory crunch. Apple CEO Tim Cook had told the Wall Street Journal that rising component costs made higher prices unavoidable, CNBC reported. Sony's PlayStation 5 and Nintendo's Switch 2 have already climbed. Even Valve's new Steam Machine starts north of $1,000, which puts the cheapest gaming hardware closer to a mid-range laptop than to the sub-$300 boxes that defined the category for a decade. Analysts say this is not the usual boom-and-bust swing that memory prices run through. This memory cycle "really is different," TrendForce analyst Avril Wu said. Prices climbed about 50% in the final quarter of 2025 alone, according to TechRadar. The supply side offers no quick relief, either. SK Hynix said last fall it had already sold out its entire 2026 production. Memory chipmakers have warned the crunch will not ease soon, and IDC describes the change as a permanent reallocation toward AI, not a passing blip. IDC also expects the shift to dent global phone sales by about 5% and PC sales by about 9% this year. Older devices like cars and TVs lean on the same memory, and analysts have compared the looming pinch to the chip shortage that snarled auto production during the pandemic. In plain terms, the gadget you were planning to buy next year was quietly repriced in a server farm you will never see. What console buyers should watch next If an Xbox is on your shopping list, the cheapest move is to buy before Aug. 1. After that date, every model on the shelf costs more, and Microsoft has already signaled the next increase is coming, not going. If you are waiting for prices to drift back down, my read is that you will be waiting a long time. New chip factories take years to build, and AI demand is not pausing to let your console catch a break. The real shift is harder to unsee. For two decades, the tech industry treated cheap memory like a law of nature and passed the savings on to you. That era is closing. The chips now flow to whoever pays the most, and right now, that is not the parent buying a game console for their kid. Watch the holiday price tags this year. They will tell you exactly who is winning the fight for the world's memory, and it's not the gamer. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. This story was originally published June 27, 2026 at 7:33 PM.

Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads as memory costs skyrocket - The Korea Times

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple raised iPad and MacBook prices on Thursday, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry's datacenter buildout. The move does not affect Apple's main cash cow, the iPhone. But it would take starting price of the Neo -- its lowest priced laptop aimed at winning marketshare from affordable Windows and Chromebook laptops -- from $599 to $699 months after launch. The increase shows even the world's most valuable consumer electronics company with supply chain relationships that are the envy of the industry is not immune to a memory price surge that has dulled the outlook for smartphone and PC sales. Memory makers such as Micron have in recent months prioritized orders from AI chipmakers like Nvidia, helping them earn record profit but leaving little supply for electronics makers that have been forced to increase prices. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac." Apple hiked the price of MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes of storage rose to $1,299 from $1,099, while the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage rose to $1,999 from $1,699, according to updated prices on its website. The iPad Air with 128 gigabytes of storage rose from $599 to $749, among other changes. The company said in April existing inventories had helped it keep its gross margins above Wall Street expectations but that rising memory costs would start to catch up by the end of this month, with profitability expected to fall slightly. "We expect significantly higher memory costs," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call with analysts in late April. "Where we don't give color beyond June, I can tell you that beyond the June quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business," Cook had said. Memory surge adds pressure on electronics makers Apple has not disclosed what steps besides price hike it has taken to address rising memory costs. The company said on Thursday, "We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions." Prices of dynamic random access memory, used in virtually all modern tech gadgets, rose as much as 98 percent in the first quarter of 2026 and is set to jump by another 58 percent to 63 percent in the current quarter, according to industry tracker TrendForce. That surge, dubbed by some experts as "RAMageddon", has been driven by a boom in AI data center construction, with companies like Nvidia signing long-term deals with memory makers who are racing to increase capacity. Micron said on Wednesday it has locked in $22 billion in such long-term commitments from customers looking to secure their memory supplies. The rising costs are expected to weigh heavily on device sales this year, with research firm IDC estimating that the smartphone market would see its biggest-ever annual decline of nearly 14 percent this year while the PC market will fall 11.3 percent. Among the notable bright spots has been the MacBook Neo launched in March, which helped power Apple's strong sales forecast for the June quarter and has even led some industry watchers to revise their estimates for PC sales. With its increased price, it has now lost a $100 advantage over the $699 XPS 13 laptop that Dell unveiled last month especially to take on the Neo, while also making it more expensive than some Chromebooks from Lenovo and Asus.

Apple price hikes raise big question for iPhone shoppers

Apple shoppers just got a clearer sign that the artificial intelligence boom may make some of the company's devices more expensive. Since Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2026, analysts have been weighing whether the company's latest AI push will make its devices more expensive, especially as memory and storage chip costs rise. On Thursday, June 25, the company officially raised prices on some Macs and iPads as higher memory and storage chip costs ripple through the consumer-electronics market. But the next big question is about Apple's most important product. Will iPhones be next? The iPhone remains Apple's biggest business and its most important consumer device. A meaningful price increase would affect millions of shoppers who already face higher costs across groceries, housing, travel, subscriptions, and everyday services. According to Statista, there are over 150 million active iPhones in the U.S., making it a core part of American life. So any change will test how much more consumers are willing to pay for a new device, especially as many people hold on to their phones longer. Apple has spent years trying to make artificial intelligence a reason for customers to upgrade. Now, the same AI boom that could make the next iPhone more useful is also driving up demand for memory and storage chips used across phones, computers, servers, and data centers. That puts Apple in a difficult position. It needs to protect profit margins, but it also cannot push prices so high that shoppers delay upgrades or trade down to cheaper models. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Apple raises Mac and iPad prices, spares iPhone for now Apple's latest price increases are already being felt across its lineup, but the iPhone is excluded for now. The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple raised prices on several Mac and iPad models by $200 or more, with the base MacBook Air rising $200 to $1,299 and the base MacBook Pro rising $300 to $1,999. The iPad Air and iPad Pro also saw price increases, according to the report. The increases come after Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal that price increases were becoming unavoidable due to higher costs for memory and storage chips. Those costs have surged as artificial-intelligence companies build more data centers and compete for the same types of chips used in consumer devices. For now, Apple has not raised iPhone prices. But that may only make shoppers more focused on what comes next, especially with the next iPhone cycle expected to be closely watched by Wall Street. JPMorgan sees smaller iPhone price increase Some investors and consumers have worried that Apple could eventually need to raise iPhone prices by $200 or more to offset higher component costs. Bank of America recently raised its assumed price increase for some iPhone models, as covered by TheStreet. However, JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee reportedly sees a less dramatic outcome. According to Seeking Alpha, Chatterjee expects the iPhone 18 series to launch with a more modest price increase than some press estimates, closer to about $50 or a mid-single-digit percentage range. That would still make the next iPhone more expensive for shoppers, but it would be a smaller increase than the kind of price shock some investors have feared. Chatterjee, who has an Overweight rating on Apple shares, reportedly expects Apple to offset part of the memory-cost pressure in other ways. According to the Seeking Alpha report, JPMorgan expects memory-cost inflation to create a more than $100 year-over-year headwind. But the firm also expects Apple to offset part of that through savings across the broader component base and through vertical integration, including the shift toward using more in-house modems and less from Qualcomm. After those offsets, JPMorgan reportedly sees roughly $50 in additional costs to be covered through higher average selling prices. In simpler terms, JPMorgan's view is that Apple may not need to pass the full memory-cost hit directly to iPhone buyers. That matters because iPhone pricing is a delicate issue. Apple can usually charge more than rivals because of its brand, ecosystem, services, and customer loyalty. But a larger price increase could still push some shoppers to keep older phones longer, buy lower-priced models, or wait for promotions from wireless carriers. Apple may find another revenue source The iPhone price question is only one part of Apple's AI strategy. JPMorgan also sees another potential way for Apple to make money from artificial intelligence: services. Chatterjee said Apple's developer conference met expectations with a completely revamped Siri. The announcements also pointed to a possible AI monetization path tied to server-dependent features, including daily usage caps and higher limits for premium users that could be bundled into most iCloud tiers. That would give Apple another way to offset AI costs without relying only on hardware price increases. The idea is simple: some basic AI features could be included, while heavier or more frequent usage could become part of paid iCloud plans. That would fit Apple's broader business model. The company has spent years building its services business through iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, AppleCare, payments, and App Store-related revenue. Adding premium AI capacity to iCloud could give Apple another reason to push customers deeper into paid services. Apple is trying to balance privacy, device performance, cloud costs, and consumer willingness to pay at a crucial business juncture. If more Siri requests run on devices, Apple may be able to keep costs lower. If more advanced requests require cloud servers, Apple may need to recover those costs by raising device prices, charging for paid AI features, or bundling service upgrades. Apple's pricing challenge now cuts both ways. If the company raises iPhone prices too much, it risks slowing upgrades at a time when it wants AI to make new devices more compelling. If it absorbs too much of the memory-cost increase, it risks putting pressure on margins. JPMorgan's view suggests Apple may try to take a middle path with modest iPhone price increases, greater component savings, more internal technology, and greater monetization of services around AI. That strategy could be easier for consumers to accept than a much larger iPhone price hike. But it still means Apple shoppers may need to prepare for higher prices in some form. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 2:03 AM.

Apple increases prices for Macs and iPads, blaming a shortage of memory chips

Apple on Thursday announced an increase in prices for Macs and iPads, citing a memory chip shortage brought on by the artificial intelligence boom. The Cupertino, California-based company called the demand spike an "unprecedented challenge" for the consumer electronics industry. "The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," the company said in a written statement. The new, entry-level MacBook Neo will now cost US$699, up from US$599. The 512 gigabyte MacBook Air now costs US$1,299, up from US$1,099. The one terabyte MacBook Pro is US$1,999, up from US$1,699. The 128 gigabyte iPad Air is now US$749, up from US$599, while the 256 gigabyte iPad Pro Wifi is now US$1,199, up from US$999. Analysts expect iPhone prices to rise later this year. IDC analyst Nabila Popal said the latest price hikes were higher than she had expected, which suggests the iPhone price hikes may also be higher than expected, perhaps as much as US$200 for the iPhone Pro and Pro Max models. "I think the days of US$50 price increases are over," she said. Apple said that while it has shielded customers from the component price surges so far, "we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions." Shares of Apple fell US$13.29, or 4.5 per cent, to US$279.88 on Thursday afternoon.

Wolfe sees higher memory prices adding to U.S. inflation pressures By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Wolfe Research said surging memory chip prices driven by the artificial intelligence buildout have already added meaningfully to core inflation, with further upside likely as costs continue to filter through the consumer electronics supply chain. Analyst Stephanie Roth told clients in a note that the firm estimates higher memory prices have added roughly 30 basis points to core PCE inflation, noting that "AI was supposed to make everything cheaper. Instead, one of the first places it's showing up is in higher prices." Roth pointed to surging demand for DRAM and NAND flash memory as hyperscalers expand AI infrastructure, which she said has pushed memory prices up two to six times. Computer prices, long a reliable source of disinflation, are now "rising at their fastest pace in decades," according to Wolfe. Apple's recent price increases have drawn particular attention to the trend. Wolfe estimates the company's planned increases for the MacBook, iPad and iPhone alone could add roughly 5 basis points to core PCE inflation. Citing TechInsights estimates via the Wall Street Journal, the firm noted that higher memory and storage costs could raise the iPhone's estimated bill of materials by roughly 25%, implying a retail price increase of more than $200 if fully passed through. Wolfe also flagged an offsetting measurement change. Starting in September, the BEA will alter how it calculates the computer software component of core PCE, a shift Wolfe estimates could trim roughly 10 basis points from the inflation measure based on a hypothetical equal weighting of the three price indexes involved.

Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads as memory costs skyrocket

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple raised iPad and MacBook prices on Thursday, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry's datacenter buildout. The move does not affect Apple's main cash cow, the iPhone. But it would take starting price of the Neo - its lowest priced laptop aimed at winning marketshare from affordable Windows and Chromebook laptops - from US$599 to $699 months after launch. The increase shows even the world's most valuable consumer electronics company with supply chain relationships that are the envy of the industry is not immune to a memory price surge that has dulled the outlook for smartphone and PC sales. Memory makers such as Micron have in recent months prioritized orders from AI chipmakers like Nvidia helping them earn record profit but leaving little supply for electronics makers that have been forced to increase prices. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac." Apple hiked the price of MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes of storage rose to $1,299 from $1,099, while the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage rose to $1,999 from $1,699, according to updated prices on its website. The iPad Air with 128 gigabytes of storage rose from $599 to $749, among other changes. * Latest technology news on BNNBloomberg.ca Apple also raised prices for both versions of its HomePod smart speaker and Apple TV set-top box. Shares of the company fell nearly 5 per cent, while rival Dell was down more than 8 per cent. Rival device makers may have to raise prices even more sharply than Apple, whose deep supplier ties have cushioned it from the full hit, several analysts said. "The memory environment is tough and remains structurally tough for the foreseeable future," said Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies. Apple said in April existing inventories had helped it keep its gross margins above Wall Street expectations but that rising memory costs would start to catch up by the end of this month, with profitability expected to fall slightly. "We expect significantly higher memory costs," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call with analysts in late April. "Where we don't give color beyond June, I can tell you that beyond the June quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business," Cook had said. MEMORY SURGE ADDS PRESSURE ON ELECTRONICS MAKERS Apple has not disclosed what steps besides price hike it has taken to address rising memory costs. "We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions," the company said on Thursday. Analysts expect Apple to increase iPhone prices in the coming months and said the latest hike could prompt some potential buyers to advance their purchase decisions. "The iPhone isn't spared, its hike is coming," said Nabila Popal, a senior research director at IDC. "It was incredibly strategic for Apple to make the price hike announcements prior to the iPhone fall launch, so the headlines at launch is not the price hikes but the value the new phones bring." Prices of dynamic random access memory, used in virtually all modern tech gadgets, rose as much as 98 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 and is set to jump by another 58 per cent to 63 per cent in the current quarter, according to industry tracker TrendForce. That surge, dubbed by some experts as "RAMageddon," has been driven by a boom in AI data center construction, with companies like Nvidia signing long-term deals with memory makers who are racing to increase capacity. Micron said on Wednesday it has locked in $22 billion in such long-term commitments from customers looking to secure their memory supplies. The rising costs are expected to weigh heavily on device sales this year, with research firm IDC estimating that the smartphone market would see its biggest-ever annual decline of nearly 14 per cent this year while the PC market will fall 11.3 per cent. Among the notable bright spots has been the MacBook Neo launched in March, which helped power Apple's strong sales forecast for the June quarter and has even led some industry watchers to revise their estimates for PC sales. With its increased price, it has now lost a $100 advantage over the $699 XPS 13 laptop that Dell unveiled last month especially to take on the Neo, while also making it more expensive than some Chromebooks from Lenovo and Asus.

AI Memory Chips Spark Inflation Worries

Last week, Apple raised prices on certain products, citing rising costs of AI memory chips. In a statement to Reuters, the company said it had "never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly" and further that it had been shielding customers from higher costs until now. There is a global shortage of memory and storage chips driven by AI data centers buying up DRAM and NAND capacity. As a consequence, Apple is increasing the MacBook Air price to $1,299 from $1,099, the MacBook Pro to $1,999 from $1,699, and the iPad Air to $749 from $599. Prices of other Apple products will also increase. Apple is not alone. Dell (NYSE:DELL) raised prices roughly 15% to 20% in late 2025, Lenovo followed in January 2026, and HP, Acer, and ASUS warned of increases. All of them blame the same AI-related memory crunch. The inflation implication is worth better appreciating. The CPI's information technology category, including computers, smartphones, and peripherals, has been a persistent deflationary force for decades. That tailwind is now slowing and possibly reversing. From a Fed perspective, it's worth noting that higher interest rates cool demand-related inflation but have a much smaller impact on supply-side inflation driven by a shortage of AI memory chips. However, if consumers and businesses are paying more for technology products, they will have less money to spend on other products. The reallocation of spending may offset some of the inflation in AI memory chips. Time, too, will solve the problem, as both new and existing AI memory chip producers are heavily incentivized to meet the insatiable demand. Quarter-End Rebalancing Trades In Action The top two graphics below help illustrate how market breadth has improved over the last few weeks as passive index managers rebalance from stocks that have outperformed the market to those that have underperformed. On a quarter-to-date basis, large-cap growth has beaten large-cap value by over 6%. While this is a meaningful outperformance, consider that over the month of June, large-cap value beat large-cap growth by about 9% and, in the process, closed what was a much larger performance gap. The graph within the third graphic shows how MGK, the mega-cap growth ETF, rotated from very overbought to oversold in three weeks. At the same time, small caps (IWM) and the equal-weighted S&P 500 (RSP) moved into overbought territory. The risk for investors chasing the new outperformers is that the sharp reversal in fortunes over the last few weeks was likely driven by rebalancing trades. It is common for larger rebalancing actions to reverse themselves once a period-end date has elapsed. Not shown, but regarding the sectors, we now find that the once laggards, health care, financials, and utilities, are overbought, while technology is back to fair value. It's important to note that over the last month, mega-cap stocks, which include technology giants like Apple, Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft, gave up 3.75% to the S&P 500. Chip makers beat the index by nearly 7%. Simply, the weakness in technology is from the largest stocks. Thus, we might expect to see those megacap names outperform in the first week of the new quarter, while semiconductor and hardware stocks give up some of the spectacular gains they earned over the last few months.

Apple hikes MacBook, iPad prices as memory costs skyrocket

Apple has raised iPad and MacBook prices, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry's datacenter buildout. The move announced on Thursday does not affect Apple's main cash cow, the iPhone. But it would take starting price of the Neo - its lowest priced laptop aimed at winning marketshare from affordable Windows and Chromebook laptops - from $599 to $699 months after launch. Apple hiked the price of MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes of storage rose to $1,299 from $1,099, while the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage rose to $1,999 from $1,699, according to updated prices on its website. The iPad Air with 128 gigabytes of storage rose from $599 to $749, among other changes. Apple also raised prices for both versions of its HomePod smart speaker and Apple TV set-top box. Shares of the company fell nearly 5%, while rival Dell was down more than 8%. The increase shows even the world's most valuable consumer electronics company with supply chain relationships that are the envy of the industry is not immune to a memory price surge that has dulled the outlook for smartphone and PC sales. Memory makers such as Micron have in recent months prioritized orders from AI chipmakers like Nvidia, helping them earn record profit but leaving little supply for electronics makers that have been forced to increase prices. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple said in a statement. "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin ⁠raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac." Rival device makers may have to raise prices even more sharply than Apple, whose deep supplier ties have cushioned it from the full hit, several analysts said. "The memory environment is tough and remains structurally tough for the foreseeable future," said Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies. Apple said in April existing inventories had helped it keep its gross margins above Wall Street expectations but that rising memory costs would start to catch up by the end of this month, with profitability expected to fall slightly. "We expect significantly higher memory costs," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call with analysts in late April. "Where we don't give color beyond June, I can tell you that beyond the June ⁠quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business," Cook had said. Memory surge adds pressure on electronics makers Apple has not disclosed what steps besides price hike it has taken to address rising memory costs. "We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions," the company said on Thursday. Analysts expect Apple to increase iPhone prices in the coming months and said the latest hike could prompt some potential buyers to advance their purchase decisions. "The iPhone isn't spared, its hike is coming," said Nabila Popal, a senior research director at IDC. "It was incredibly strategic for Apple to make the price hike announcements prior to the iPhone fall launch, ⁠so the headlines at launch is not the price hikes but the value the new phones bring." Prices of dynamic random access memory, used in virtually all modern tech gadgets, rose as much as 98% in the first quarter of 2026 and is set to jump by another 58% to 63% in the current quarter, according to industry tracker TrendForce. That surge, dubbed by some experts as "RAMageddon," has been driven by a boom in AI data center construction, with ⁠companies like Nvidia signing long-term deals with memory makers who are racing to increase capacity. Micron said on Wednesday it has locked in $22 billion in such long-term commitments from customers looking to secure their memory supplies. The rising costs are expected to weigh heavily on device sales this year, with research firm IDC estimating that the smartphone market would see its biggest-ever annual decline of nearly 14% this year while the ⁠PC market will fall 11.3%. Among the notable bright spots has been the MacBook Neo launched in March, which helped power Apple's strong sales forecast for the June quarter and has even led some industry watchers to revise their estimates for PC sales. With its increased price, it has now lost a $100 advantage over the $699 XPS 13 laptop that Dell unveiled last month especially to take on the Neo, while also making it more expensive than some Chromebooks from Lenovo and Asus.

Apple raises prices big time as Tim Cook says 'I've never seen anything like it'

AI companies buying up memory at scale is squeezing supply for everyday devices Apple has raised prices across its Mac, iPad and other hardware lineups in India without any formal announcement and the increases are substantial. The revised prices are visible directly on Apple's website. The Mac mini with the M4 chip and 256GB storage now costs Rs 82,900, up from Rs 59,900, a jump of Rs 23,000. The Mac mini M4 Pro has gone from Rs 1,49,900 to Rs 1,99,900. The MacBook Air M5 has risen from Rs 1,20,900 to Rs 1,49,900 and even the upcoming MacBook Neo's projected price has reportedly moved from around Rs 69,900 to Rs 79,900. The increases extend well beyond laptops. The Apple TV 4K 64GB model has jumped from Rs 14,900 to Rs 25,900 and the 128GB version from Rs 16,900 to Rs 31,900. The HomePod now costs Rs 44,900, up from its Rs 32,900 launch price, while the HomePod mini has risen from Rs 10,900 to Rs 15,900. Notably, the iPhone lineup has been left untouched in this round, which tipster Yogesh Brar has suggested is deliberate, since Apple is unlikely to want to disrupt pricing on its biggest revenue driver outside of its usual September launch cycle. Why this is happening: Tim Cook's own words The reason behind this goes back to comments Apple CEO Tim Cook made directly to The Wall Street Journal, where he described the scale of the current memory chip shortage in stark terms. "This is a hundred-year flood. I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years," he said. Cook also acknowledged the company's options are limited: "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases." The underlying cause is a global supply crunch in memory chips, the components that power everything from laptops and smartphones to servers. AI companies including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google have been securing massive quantities of memory chips to power their data centres and model training, creating intense demand pressure that is pushing up prices for everyone else buying the same components for consumer devices. It isn't just demand driving this either. Suppliers are actively shifting their own production priorities. Micron, one of the three major global memory suppliers, has reportedly decided to shut down its consumer memory division entirely in order to focus on AI-driven demand instead. When a supplier of that scale deprioritises consumer-facing chips like NAND and RAM, the squeeze on companies like Apple, which rely on a steady supply of those components for everyday devices, becomes even tighter. Could Apple turn to Chinese suppliers? One option reportedly being explored is sourcing more memory from Chinese suppliers, though this comes with its own complications. Apple would likely need a license from US officials to do so, given the broader geopolitical tension between the US and China that touches nearly every domain of the tech industry, AI development very much included. Whether Apple pursues this route and how quickly US regulators would respond to such a request, remains to be seen. For now, Apple has not officially commented on the reasoning behind its India price increases, though the timing and scale line up directly with what Cook has already described as an unprecedented supply crunch with no clear end date.