Apple shares fell 5.22% to about $277.79 after the company announced broad price increases for MacBook and iPad models. CNBC said the move came as booming AI data center demand sent memory and storage component costs sharply higher, leaving Apple to pass part of that pressure on to buyers.
Price increases hit core MacBook and iPad models
After a brief update on Apple’s website, the new pricing went live. The changes ranged from $100 to $300 depending on the model. MacBook Neo rose from $599 to $699, MacBook Air 512GB moved from $1,099 to $1,299, and MacBook Pro 1TB increased from $1,699 to $1,999.
iPad prices were raised at the same time. The iPad Air 128GB went from $599 to $749, while the iPad Pro Wi‑Fi 256GB increased from $999 to $1,199. This was not a narrow adjustment tied to a single device line. Apple changed prices across major consumer hardware categories in one step.
Cook calls the supply shock a “hundred-year flood”
In its statement, Apple said the consumer electronics industry is facing an extraordinary cost squeeze as fast AI data center expansion drives abnormal demand for memory and storage. The company said it had absorbed those costs as much as possible and had now reached the point where it had to raise prices on some products.
CEO Tim Cook had already warned about the situation in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, describing the supply chain strain as a “hundred-year flood.” He said that in more than 40 years in electronics, he had never seen component prices rise this fast or this much, and Apple could no longer fully shield customers from the jump in costs.
HBM demand tightens supply for consumer devices
The report traced the pressure to memory suppliers shifting capacity toward high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, to serve AI server demand from companies such as NVIDIA. That shift has tightened supply for standard memory and storage parts used in consumer devices. Counterpoint Research data showed prices for mainstream memory and storage components had risen fourfold over the past three quarters.
The profit split across the supply chain has become stark. The article said Micron’s gross margin climbed from 39% last year to 84.9% in its latest quarter. Apple, by contrast, is facing heavier hardware costs. To run Apple Intelligence and the new Siri smoothly, future iPhones are expected to move to 12GB RAM across the lineup. Analysts cited in the report warned that manufacturing cost per iPhone could rise by about $200, opening the door to possible retail price increases of $150 to $200.