Here’s some news you don’t see every day: On Thursday, Apple raised the prices on several of its best-selling products, including Mac desktops, MacBooks, iPads, and HomePod devices. (See below for a listing of those products.)
Apple’s online store was down briefly Thursday morning before coming back online with updated prices. According to The Wall Street Journal, Mac computers are up by 15% to 20%, and iPads are up 15% to 25%.
What’s clearly missing from the lineup of price hikes is the iPhone, Apple’s most successful and profitable product.
Why the price hike? The company is citing an extraordinary surge in global AI-driven memory and storage costs.The move comes a week after outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal that planned “price increases are unavoidable” and the tech giant was “doing [its] best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us.” And although the company has been trying to shield customers, “the situation has become unsustainable,” he said.
“This is a hundred-year flood,” Cook explained to the Journal. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”
Microsoft also recently raised prices for its Surface laptops and announced Thursday that it was increasing the price of its Xbox game consoles starting August 1.
Shares of Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) were down 5.2% in afternoon trading at the time of this writing. Shares of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) were down over 3%.
Prices for memory and storage chips have quadrupled over the past three quarters as a result of the demand for AI servers, according to Counterpoint Research, CNBC reported.
As the backlash continues over AI data centers, the hikes are just another example of how artificial intelligence is both powering and changing the way businesses operate, resulting in a growing cost for consumers.
Here is a look at some of Apple’s price increases, reported by MacRumors:
HomePod mini: $129, up from $99 (+$30)
HomePod: $349, up from $299 (+$50)
Apple TV: $199, up from $129 (+$70)
iPad Air: $749, up from $599 (+$150)
iPad Pro: $1,199, up from $999 (+$200)
MacBook Neo: $699, up from $599 (+$100)
MacBook Air: $1,299, up from $1,099 (+$200)
MacBook Pro: $1,999 up from $1,699 (+$300)
iMac: $1,499, up from $1,299 (+$200)
Mac mini (M4 Pro): $1,599, up from $1,399 (+$200)
Mac Studio (M4 Max): $2,499, up from $1,999 (+$500)
Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): $5,299, up from $3,999 (+$1,300)
Vision Pro: $3,699, up from $3,499 (+$200)
The average price increase is $246.67, according to MacRumors.
In addition to the iPhone, prices for the Apple Watch, AirPods, Studio Display, and accessories such as the Apple Pencil also remain unaffected.
