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 data centre buildout.
The move does not affect Apple’s cash cow, the iPhone. But it would take the starting price of the Neo, its lowest-priced laptop, from $599 to $699 mere months after launch.
The increase shows that 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 such as Nvidia. The move has helped the memory makers to record profits, but has left little supply for electronics makers. Those, in turn, have been forced to increase prices.
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“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.”
Prices of a MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes went up $200. A MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage will become $300 more expensive. 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.
Apple’s deep supplier ties have provided some cushion, several analysts said – some of its rivals have been forced to raise prices even more sharply.
Still, analysts expect prices for the iPhone to go up next.
“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 are 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 “Ram-ageddon”, has been driven by a boom in AI data centre 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 would fall 11.3 per cent. – Guardian
