Apple Has Raised MacBook and iPad Prices Worldwide as AI Demand Drives a Memory Chip Crisis
The company says it has shielded customers from component cost increases until now, but the AI-driven surge in chip demand has made further absorption impossible.
Summary
Apple has raised prices on MacBook and iPad products worldwide by nearly 20% in some cases, citing an unprecedented surge in memory and storage chip costs driven by AI data centre demand
The MacBook Pro with 1TB of storage has risen to $1,999 USD from $1,699 USD in the US, while the Apple Neo laptop has increased from £599 GBP to £699 GBP in the UK
Apple stated it has shielded customers from component cost increases until now, but has reached a point where price rises on Mac and iPad are unavoidable
Apple has raised the prices of MacBook and iPad products worldwide, citing soaring memory and storage component costs tied to surging demand for chips powering AI data centres. The company described the situation as an unprecedented challenge, saying it had never seen component prices rise this much, this quickly, and confirmed it had previously absorbed cost increases before reaching a point where passing them on to consumers became unavoidable.
The specific driver is a supply and demand imbalance in the memory and storage chip market, particularly RAM, created by the rapid proliferation of data centres needed to support the AI boom. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker and a supplier to Apple, Nvidia, and AMD, has separately indicated that inflation is pushing up its own cost of doing business, with TSMC’s Wendell Huang not ruling out further price increases in a BBC interview earlier in June. Apple’s outgoing chief executive Tim Cook had flagged the direction of travel beforehand, telling the Wall Street Journal that price increases were unavoidable due to what he described as an unsustainable situation around memory chips, adding that the industry needed memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products.
The MacBook Pro with 1TB of storage is now listed at $1,999 USD, up from $1,699 USD on Apple’s US store, a increase of $300 USD. In the UK, the Apple MacBook Neo, the company’s lowest-priced laptop, has moved from £599 GBP to £699 GBP within months of its launch. Apple confirmed the increases extend across iPad and Mac lines, though specific per-model breakdowns beyond these were not detailed in the source material.
Analyst response has been measured rather than alarmed. Tech analyst Paolo Pescatore told the BBC that Apple’s actions demonstrated the extent of the challenge facing even the world’s largest technology companies, describing the hikes as a significant moment given Apple’s scale and buying power. Dipanjan Chatterjee of Forrester Research suggested Apple’s loyal customer base would absorb the financial impact without significant pushback, noting that if any company can survive a price increase with minimal blowback, it is Apple. David Naranjo of Counterpoint Research predicted other PC and tablet manufacturers would follow, either through direct price increases on select products, reductions in discounts on entry-level models, or a shift in focus toward premium devices.
Apple noted it was working to find solutions to the component cost situation, though no specific timeline or strategy was outlined beyond that statement.
Apple has drastically increased prices due to rising costs.
The fully loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro now costs $9999.
Via Mark Gurman/Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/5V3hTCbqu1— Chubby♨️ (@kimmonismus) June 25, 2026
