price rises had become “unavoidable”<\/a>, announcing higher prices for Macs and iPads as AI-driven demand for memory chips continues to push up costs. <\/p>\nIn Thursday’s announcement, the Cupertino-based company described the demand spike as an “unprecedented challenge” for the consumer electronics industry. <\/p>\n
In a written statement cited by AP, Apple said: “The rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.” <\/p>\n
The new entry-level MacBook Neo will cost $100 (about \u20ac90) more, while the 512GB MacBook Air and the 256GB iPad Pro Wi-Fi will each cost an extra $200 (about \u20ac175). The 1TB MacBook Pro will become $300 (about \u20ac265) more expensive, while the 128GB iPad Air will cost an additional $150 (about \u20ac130). <\/p>\n
Analysts expect iPhone prices to rise later this year. <\/p>\n
IDC analyst Nabila Popal said the latest increases were larger than expected, suggesting iPhone prices could also rise more sharply than anticipated, perhaps by as much as $200 (about \u20ac175) for the iPhone Pro and Pro Max models. <\/p>\n
“I think the days of $50 price increases are over,” she said. <\/p>\n
Apple said in the written statement cited by AP that while it had shielded customers from the component price surge until now, “we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPads and Macs. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.” <\/p>\n
Apple shares fell $13.29, or 4.5%, to $279.88 in afternoon trading on Thursday. <\/p>\n
AI boom reshapes the economics of consumer electronics <\/p>\n
The accelerated construction of data centres for AI training and applications has sent the cost of memory and storage chips soaring. These components are used in virtually all electronic devices. <\/p>\n
This market, dominated by giants such as South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix and US-based Micron, has suffered major supply shortages for several months, driving prices higher. <\/p>\n
The cost of storage and memory chips has more than doubled and is expected to double again by late 2027, Microsoft said on Thursday. <\/p>\n
Related <\/p>\n
The Redmond-based company also noted that consoles, unlike phones or computers, “are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make.” <\/p>\n
Its Japanese rival Sony raised the price of its PlayStation 5 by \u20ac100 in Europe in early April, bringing the standard version to \u20ac650. <\/p>\n
Nintendo has announced a price increase of more than 6% from 1 September for its Switch 2. On Monday, US-based company Valve launched its new Steam Machine at more than $1,000 (about \u20ac880) for the base version, making it more expensive than expected. <\/p>\n
The third-largest console maker after Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft had previously cut the price of its Xbox Game Pass subscription in April, which players considered too expensive. <\/p>\n
Microsoft’s gaming division, which accounted for about 8% of its revenue during fiscal year 2025, underwent a major restructuring in February amid declining revenue, particularly from Xbox sales, and the disappointing performance of new games. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft said on Thursday it will raise the price of its Xbox video game consoles worldwide by between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,304,733,4308,111219,696,25436,40826,186,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-659323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-apple","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-memory-chips","tag-microsoft","tag-price-increase","tag-price-increases","tag-prices","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}