Apple is hiking prices on MacBooks and iPads by more than 10% days after CEO Tim Cook said chip costs were soaring.
Concretely, the company raised the prices of Macbook models Neo, Air and Pro 1T, and for the iPad Air and Pro models. The company's stock is falling on Thursday following the news, dragging indexes.
CNBC noted that Apple's store briefly went offline on Thursday morning and went back on showing updated prices.
Addressing them in a statement, the company said that "the consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge" as the "rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage."
"We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," the company added, noting that it reached a "point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products."
"We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions," Apple said.
Company CEO Tim Cook had anticipated the development in an interview days ago. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he called price increases "unavoidable."
Technology giants are investing hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, consuming vast quantities of DRAM and high-bandwidth memory chips needed to train and run advanced artificial intelligence models.
That demand has tightened global supplies and driven up prices across the semiconductor industry. Manufacturers such as Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix have increasingly prioritized production of high-performance server memory destined for AI systems rather than chips used in smartphones, tablets, and personal computers.
Apple has been warning investors about the issue for months. During the company's fiscal second-quarter earnings call in April, Cook said Apple expected "significantly higher memory costs" beginning in the June quarter and cautioned that those expenses would continue to have a growing impact on the business.
At the time, Apple was able to soften the blow by drawing on previously stockpiled inventory purchased before memory prices surged. But those supplies have gradually been depleted, increasing pressure on the company's margins.
Other major technology companies, including Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, and Dell, have already adjusted pricing or product configurations in response to rising memory expenses and supply constraints.
Despite the challenges, Cook said Apple has no plans to manufacture its own memory chips. Instead, the company intends to use its financial resources and supply-chain expertise to help secure future component supplies.
