Apple raises MacBook and iPad prices as chip costs surge

Apple raised prices across its Mac and iPad lineup on Thursday, lifting the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad Air and iPad Pro as memory and storage chip costs surged under pressure from the AI data-center buildout. The company said it had absorbed higher costs so far but had reached the point where it needed to pass some of them on, adding that it had “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”

The iPhone was left out of the round of increases. The MacBook Air with 512GB of storage climbed to $1,299 from $1,099, the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro rose to $1,999 from $1,699, the iPad Air with 128GB went to $749 from $599, and the 11-inch iPad Pro increased to $1,199 from $999. Apple also lifted the starting price of the MacBook Neo to $699 from $599, and the changes were reflected across the company’s online stores globally.

Apple warned for months. In Apple’s April 30 fiscal second-quarter results, revenue reached a record $111.2 billion, up 17% from a year earlier, but Tim Cook said memory costs were already higher and were expected to worsen through the June quarter and beyond. In a June 17 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Cook said price increases were “unavoidable” and described the memory shortage as a “hundred-year flood.”

Memory makers are steering supply toward AI servers, leaving less room for chips used in phones, tablets and laptops. Apple shares fell nearly 5% after the announcement, while Dell dropped more than 8%.