Apple Raises MacBook, iPad Prices by Up to 42% Amid Rising Memory Chip Costs

The price of the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip has been increased to Rs 2,99,900 from the launch price of Rs 2,49,900 per unit.

There was a sharp increase in the price of iPad Air. The unit price of the base model on the 13-inch iPad Air has been increased by 41.22 percent from Rs 84,900 to Rs 1,19,900 per unit.

Apple’s MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad Air and iPad Pro Wi-Fi price increases follow the biggest change in the cost structure of the consumer and enterprise PC and tablet market, shaped by rising semiconductor chip prices from memory to processors, said Neil Shah, Counterpoint Research Co-Founder and VP of Research.

Apple said in a statement that the consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge.

“The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created a tremendous increase in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen such rapid growth in component prices.

“We have protected our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to start increasing prices on a range of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is unwelcome news and are working tirelessly to find a solution,” the statement said.

Consumer electronics price increases are already common across the industry, with many products experiencing increases of 40 percent or more.

Memory companies are devoting an increasing share of their production to AI data centers, leaving the consumer electronics segment facing limited availability and rising costs.

Memory suppliers report margins at historically high levels.

Memory chip leader Micron reported that its gross margin rose to 86 percent, up from 15 percent last year.

“Apple, long considered the industry’s benchmark for supply chain flexibility, has begun passing on higher component costs to consumers. This is a strong signal that pricing pressures have reached a level that even the most sophisticated adoption strategies cannot fully offset,” said Prabhu Ram, Vice President, Industry Research Group, CyberMedia Research.

Shah said Apple protected its user base from any price inflation by maintaining the price increase for at least two quarters, but Apple has reached a point where it can absorb the cost increase.

“Unprecedented AI infrastructure growth has transformed the semiconductor supply chain, driving insatiable demand for DRAM, NAND, and Compute chips; it is not matched by manufacturing and supply capacity to other markets as AI infrastructure is prioritized. We believe the situation will not get better for at least the next two years,” he said.

Shah said the timing of the price increase wasn’t ideal because Apple plans to roll out the revamped on-device Apple Intelligence to devices that require significant memory and computing capacity increases toward the end of this year.

“This could possibly affect the overall demand for Apple products in the coming months. However, this could also be positive for Apple, especially for customers who are due for an update and want to buy a new Mac or iPad and cannot postpone the purchase, they will not compromise by paying extra for a lower configuration, but will instead buy a more premium version of the Apple portfolio. So, the market may shift towards the premium market as users look to get maximum value for their money,” Shah said.