Apple hikes MacBook and iPad prices by 20% due to rising memory costs driven by AI boom

Apple has raised prices on MacBooks and iPads by about 20% worldwide, one of the largest price increases in the company's history, writes the Financial Times. Apple cited a shortage of memory chips caused by the boom in artificial intelligence infrastructure as the reason.

The company said the entire consumer electronics industry was facing an "unprecedented challenge" as memory prices rose so quickly that the company had to pass on the costs to consumers. Apple noted:

“The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We know this is unfortunate news and are working tirelessly to find solutions.”

The price increase affected almost the entire line of MacBooks and iPads. Thus, the MacBook Air with a 512 GB drive increased in price from $1099 to $1299, the iPad Pro with 256 GB - from $999 to $1199. The price of the budget MacBook Neo, released in March, increased the most - by 25%, from $599 to $749. At the same time, the company has not yet increased prices for the iPhone, which provides Apple with about half of its revenue. Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook warned that price increases this year would be "inevitable" due to "volatile" memory and storage costs.

Laptop manufacturers Dell, HP, Lenovo and Asus have already resorted to similar measures, and Samsung raised prices for two models of the S26 smartphone in the US by $100. The DRAM memory market is controlled by Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung - all three companies this year exceeded the capitalization of $1 trillion for the first time amid a sharp increase in demand for memory for AI servers, while Micron's quarterly profit grew 15 times. Apple considered switching to Chinese memory suppliers YMTC and CXMT, but faced opposition from US authorities, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing security risks.

It was previously reported that for the budget MacBook Neo, the company used rejected A18 Pro processors with the graphics core disabled - a practice that allowed Apple to reduce production costs for cheaper devices.