Apple is increasing the prices of the iPad and MacBook due to the increase in memory chip costs
Managing editor Bernstein and senior analyst Mark Newman talk about the future of Apple intelligence after the release of their new Siri AI in The Claman Countdown.
Apple on Thursday announced that it has raised the prices of its iPad and MacBook devices due to rising memory and chip costs amid the rapid development of the AI industry.
The tech giant is excluding its first cash cow, the iPhone, from the price hike but will raise prices on other devices as Apple has said it will no longer be able to protect consumers from rising costs of memory and storage chips.
“We’ve never seen the price go up so much, so quickly,” Apple said in a statement. “We’ve protected our customers from these increases so far, but now we’ve reached the point where we have to start raising prices on many products, including today’s iPad and Mac increases.”
The price hike shows that even the most important consumer electronics company and its strong supply chain relationships are not immune to the rise in prices of memory chips that has reduced the outlook for smartphone and PC sales.
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Apple is raising prices on MacBooks and iPads, as well as other devices, amid rising memory chip costs. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Memory chipmakers such as Micron have moved to prioritize orders from AI chipmakers such as Nvidia in recent months, helping them post record profits but hampering supplies at electronics makers and prompting them to raise prices.
Apple’s Neo, the company’s low-cost laptop that aims to compete with affordable versions of Windows laptops and Chromebooks, is one of the products that will be subject to price increases and will go from $599 to $699 in the months after launch.
The company also raised the price of the MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes of storage from $1,099 to $1,299; while the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage price increased from $1,699 to $1,999; and the price of the iPad Air with 128 gigabytes of storage increased from $599 to $749.
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| A ticker | Security | Finally | Change | Change % |
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| AAPL | Company APPLE INC. | 277.25 | +2.10 |
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Apple has also increased the prices of both versions of the HomePod smart speaker and the Apple TV set-top box.
The announcement comes after Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal in an interview earlier this month that “price increases are inevitable.”
“We are doing everything we can to reduce the large financial increases that have been transferred to us, and we have been trying to protect our customers from their increases, but the situation is not good,” said Cook in an interview.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook resigned on September 1. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Cook also said in a late April conference call with analysts that, “While we don’t provide color beyond June, I can tell you that beyond the June quarter, we believe that memory costs will have an incremental impact on our business.”
Rival device makers may be forced to raise prices more sharply than Apple, whose deep relationships with suppliers have kept it out of the running, several analysts said.
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“The memory space is strong and will remain strong for the foreseeable future,” said Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology firm Creative Strategies.
Reuters contributed to this report.
