{"id":762196,"date":"2026-06-26T09:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/762196\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T09:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:57:12","slug":"apple-microsoft-hike-prices-over-surging-chip-costs-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/762196\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple, Microsoft hike prices over surging chip costs | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tech giants roll out steep price increases amid shortage of memory chips used to power AI.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Published On 26 Jun 202626 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

Apple and Microsoft have rolled out steep price hikes for some of their best-selling products, blaming soaring memory chip costs amid the boom in AI.<\/p>\n

Apple on Thursday increased prices across its range of Macs and iPads, with many of its most popular models seeing hikes of 20 percent or more.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The base model MacBook Air now retails in the United States for $1,299, up from $1,099, while the lowest-spec MacBook Pro rose from\u00a0$1,699 to $1,999.<\/p>\n

The base price of the iPad Air increased from $599 to $749, while the iPad Pro jumped from $999 to $1,199.<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s entry-level MacBook Neo is now priced at $699, up from $599.<\/p>\n

The Mac Studio M3 Ultra desktop computer saw the steepest price rise of any product, jumping from $3,999 to $5,299.<\/p>\n

Apple said that while it had shielded consumers from rising chip costs until now, it had \u201creached a point where we need to begin raising prices\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage,\u201d an Apple spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s stock price fell more than 6 percent following the price hikes, its steepest fall since US President Donald Trump\u2019s announcement of his \u201cliberation day\u201d tariffs in April last year.<\/p>\n

\"Apple\"A view of an Apple logo at an Apple store in Paris, France, on April 23, 2025 [File: Abdul Saboor\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

Trevor Long, a consumer tech analyst and commentator based in Australia, said he expects the price increases to affect Apple\u2019s sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome products, like their newest product, the MacBook Neo, while excellent as products, were also outstanding because of price,\u201d Long told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis hits that hard. They are still a decent deal but push closer to other competitive product prices as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long said he expects the coming year to be challenging for leading tech players such as Apple.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key thing will be the next iPhone and how close they can price it to the last one,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d expect a $50-150 price rise across the range, depending on models.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microsoft also cited rising chip prices in an announcement confirming that it would raise the price of the 512 GB and 1 TB models of its Xbox gaming console by $100 and $150, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options,\u201d Microsoft said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027,\u201d the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech giants roll out steep price increases amid shortage of memory chips used to power AI. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1686,46,43,44,61,41,39,42,40,772,1690],"class_list":["post-762196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-business-and-economy","tag-economy","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}