Apple cited the buildout of AI infrastructure as the driving force behind its decision to raise prices on MacBook and iPad models. iPhones could be next
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Shares of Apple $AAPL dropped about 5% Thursday — the steepest one-day loss the stock has suffered since February — after the company hiked prices on five MacBook and iPad models, marking the first time it has passed along rising memory and storage costs to consumers.
The five affected products span both product lines. The entry-level MacBook Neo rises $100 to $699, the MacBook Air 512GB model adds $200 to reach $1,299, and the MacBook Pro 1TB edition climbs $300 to $1,999. On the tablet side, the iPad Air 128GB moves from $599 to $749, and the iPad Pro Wi-Fi 256GB increases from $999 to $1,199. Apple's online store went down briefly Thursday morning before returning with updated prices.
In a statement, Apple cited the buildout of AI infrastructure as the driving force behind the changes, quoting the surge in demand for memory and storage that data center expansion has triggered. The company said it had never witnessed component prices climb so far so fast, and acknowledged that further increases to its product lineup were possible, noting it had arrived at a point requiring action on pricing.
Over the last three quarters, chip suppliers have redirected a growing share of production toward high-bandwidth memory for AI servers, a shift that has pushed memory and storage prices up by roughly four times, according to CNBC.
The price hikes followed remarks Apple CEO Tim Cook made to The Wall Street Journal last week, in which he described the component cost environment as unlike anything in his four decades in the industry. "This is a hundred-year flood," he said. "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years." Cook had indicated that absorbing the full impact of the spike on Apple's behalf was no longer viable.
Thursday's moves were not the first hint of Apple's strategy for managing the cost crunch. Back in May, the company removed the $599, 256GB Mac mini from its store, effectively making the $799 configuration the new floor. Charging more for storage tiers has separately served as a durable mechanism for Apple to increase what customers spend per transaction.
The pressure is expected to extend to iPhones. Counterpoint Research puts Apple's additional component burden at around $200 for each iPhone unit, and anticipates that price tags on the devices will ultimately rise somewhere between $150 and $200, with the heaviest increases concentrated on configurations carrying more memory.
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