Apple has unexpectedly raised the prices of its MacBooks and iPads by 15 to 25 percent. Behind it all is the artificial intelligence boom, which is rewriting the rules of the entire electronics market.
How much more will you pay?
It’s not just a few pennies. Apple $AAPL quietly updated its price lists overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, and the results are significant:
MacBook Air: up $200 to $1,299
MacBook Pro: +$300, now priced at $1,999
MacBook Neo (latest model): from $599 to $699
Mac Studio: from $1,999 to $2,499
iPad Air: up $150, new price $749
iPad Pro: price increased by $200 to $1,199
Base iPad: from $349 to $449
Smart speakers and set-top boxes have also gone up in price. The iPhone remains at its original price for now—but Apple has hinted that this may not last long.
Apple’s stock fell following the announcement, dragging down the entire U.S. market with it. The market clearly didn’t expect this to happen so soon.
Why is Apple doing this—and why now?
The official explanation is clear: it’s due to a dramatic increase in the price of memory chips. Apple stated in a press release that it “has never seen the price of a component rise so quickly and to such an extent” —and that the situation has become unsustainable.
Two types of components are key: RAM (working memory) and NAND flash (storage). Both are found in every MacBook and iPad, and both have risen in price dramatically. DRAM chip prices rose by 90 to 95% in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter. NAND flash prices rose by 55 to 60%. These aren’t figures from a dystopian novel—they’re real market data from the analytics firm TrendForce.
Why such a dramatic increase? Because chip manufacturers— Samsung $SSNLF, SK Hynix $HY9H.F, and Micron $MU — have redirected 93% of their production to specialized high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which powers AI servers. Every wafer allocated for a data center GPU is a wafer missing from an iPad or MacBook. It’s a zero-sum game.
Tim Cook spoke about the situation just a few days ago in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. He described the price increases as “inevitable” and added that Apple had tried to absorb the increases for as long as possible—but its inventory of previously purchased chips has run out.
The AI boom as a catalyst for higher consumer electronics prices
The entire situation stems from a structural shift in the industry, not a temporary fluctuation. Hyperscalers— Microsoft $MSFT, Google $GOOG, Meta $META, Amazon $AMZN — plan to spend over $600 billion on AI infrastructure this year. A large portion of this money is going toward servers equipped with HBM chips, which are much more difficult to manufacture than standard memory.
A single HBM wafer consumes capacity equivalent to the production of two to three conventional DRAM modules. The result: memory supplies for consumer electronics have fallen to critically low levels, and manufacturers like Apple simply have nothing to draw from.
New production capacity from Micron, SK Hynix, or Samsung won’t come online until 2027 at the earliest. Until then, the market will be as tight as a drum.
"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."
Apple, official statement on price increases, June 2026
Who will raise prices next?
Apple isn’t the first—and it certainly won’t be the last. Microsoft $MSFT raised prices on its Xbox Series X consoles by 20%; Dell $DELL and HP $HPQ have warned of rising laptop prices; Samsung and Sony $SONY are next in line.
Analyst David Naranjo of Counterpoint Research openly states that other PC and tablet manufacturers will follow Apple’s lead. Some will raise prices outright, while others will prefer to reduce discounts on entry-level models or quietly downgrade specifications.
Apple, however, has one key advantage: a loyal customer base that won’t easily abandon the platform. Dipanjan Chatterjee of the research firm Forrester sums it up bluntly:
“If anyone can survive a price hike with minimal consequences, it’s Apple. Their customers are loyal and will accept a higher price rather than switch to a competing product.”
Dipanjan Chatterjee, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester
Other manufacturers—especially those with lower-priced models— are in a significantly worse position. For a mid-range Android phone, memory accounts for 15 to 20% of total production costs. With such a price increase for components , they have no room to maneuver.
The iPhone still costs the same. But for how long?
The price hikes haven’t spared the Mac and iPad. The iPhone has so far been spared—and that’s by design. Apple needs to protect the most important product in its portfolio, which forms the backbone of its entire ecosystem.
However, JPMorgan analysts estimate that the share of memory and storage in the iPhone’s total production costs could rise from today’s 10–15% to more than 45% by 2027. That’s a figure that simply cannot be absorbed into the margin.
Cook himself has hinted that the iPhone will not escape a price hike. The new iPhone 18 series is expected this fall—and it will be more expensive than its predecessor.
The chip crisis has thus ceased to be just a problem for data centers. It has entered living rooms, offices, and pockets. And electronics manufacturers are now passing it on where you’ll feel it the most—on the price tag at the register.