As foretold, Apple has increased the prices of many products today. Chance Miller has put together a list:
Macs
| Product: | Old Price: | New Price: | Increase: | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | MacBook Neo | $599 | $699 | 16.7% | | 13-inch MacBook Air | $1,099 | $1,299 | 18.2% | | 15-inch MacBook Air | $1,299 | $1,499 | 15.4% | | M5 MacBook Pro | $1,699 | $1,999 | 17.7% | | M5 Pro MacBook Pro | $2,199 | $2,499 | 13.6% | | M5 Max MacBook Pro | $3,599 | $4,099 | 13.9% | | iMac | $1,299 | $1,499 | 15.4% | | M4 Max Mac Studio | $1,999 | $2,499 | 25% | | M3 Ultra Mac Studio | $3,999 | $5,299 | 32.5% |
iPads
| Product: | Old Price: | New Price: | Increase: | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | iPad | $349 | $449 | 28.7% | | 11-inch iPad Air | $599 | $749 | 25% | | 13-inch iPad Air | $749 | $949 | 26.7% | | 11-inch iPad Pro | $999 | $1,199 | 20% | | 13-inch iPad Pro | $1,299 | $1,499 | 15.4% | | iPad mini | $499 | $599 | 20% |
Other
| Product: | Old Price: | New Price: | Increase: | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Apple TV 4K | $129 | $199 | 54.3% | | HomePod | $299 | $349 | 16.7% | | HomePod mini | $99 | $129 | 30.3% | | Vision Pro | $3,499 | $3,699 | 5.7% |
Additionally, many upper-level SKUs saw increases. The Mac mini with M4 Pro got a $200 bump to $1,599, while the M5 Max MacBook Pro jumped from $3,599 to $4,099. As expected, increases really stack up when you start configuring higher-end options like larger SSDs and additional unified memory.
Apple addressed the increases to The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler:
“We have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices,” [Apple] said in the statement. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”
Driven by surging demand from AI hyperscalers, the prices of memory chips, called DRAM, and storage chips, called NAND, have both quadrupled over the past 12 months, according to research firm TechInsights, which projects those prices to keep rising into next year.
Mark Gurman at Bloomberg:
An Apple spokesperson said that “the rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage” and that the company has “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”
Apple added it has “shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products including today’s increases for iPad and Mac.” “We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions,” it said.
Casey Newton:
Consumer electronics getting significantly more expensive due to the AI industry may accelerate the backlash even faster than the data center buildout.
Notably, Apple was able to keep the iPhone at its existing price points.1 I suppose time will tell if Apple can hold the line there.