The cost of the memory crisis was heavy! Apple products are priced higher

Apple increased the prices of Macbooks and iPads due to the crisis in memory costs.

This price increase, which does not affect Apple’s biggest source of revenue, the iPhone, will increase the starting price of the company’s most budget-friendly model, “Neo”, which aims to capture market share from affordable Windows and Chromebook laptops, from $599 to $699, just months after its launch.

Memory manufacturers such as Micron have prioritized orders from artificial intelligence chip manufacturers, especially Nvidia, in recent months. While this situation enabled memory manufacturers to make record profits, it left electronics manufacturers with a very limited supply area, forcing them to force a price increase.

In the official statement from Apple, “We have never seen the price of a component increase this quickly and this much.” statements were included. “We have protected our customers from these price increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to start increasing prices on a number of our products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac,” the statement continued. It was said.

NEW PRICES OF PRODUCTS ARE ANNOUNCED

According to the price list updated on the company’s website; The price of the MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes (GB) of storage increased from $ 1,099 to $ 1,299, and the price of the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte (TB) of storage increased from $ 1,699 to $ 1,999. Among other changes, the price of the iPad Air with 128 GB storage increased from $ 599 to $ 749.

Apple also increased prices for both versions of its HomePod smart speaker and Apple TV media player. Following these developments, the company’s shares lost 0.7 percent in premarket transactions.

In an announcement in April, Apple said existing inventory was helping keep gross margins above Wall Street expectations, but that rising memory costs would begin to take effect by the end of this month and profitability was expected to decline slightly.

“We expect memory costs to increase significantly,” CEO Tim Cook said in a teleconference with analysts in late April. He had warned. “While we don’t have a clear picture beyond June, I can say that we believe memory costs will have an increasing impact on our business after the June quarter,” Cook also said. He spoke as follows.

MEMORY CRISIS IS REFLECTED AS A PRICE PRICE FOR ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS

Apple has not shared with the public what steps it has taken to cope with increasing memory costs, other than price increases. In a statement on Thursday, the company said only, “We recognize this is not welcome news and are working tirelessly to find a solution.” he said.

According to data from industry research company TrendForce, prices of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which is used in almost all modern technological devices today, increased by up to 98 percent in the first quarter of 2026 and is expected to make another jump of 58 percent to 63 percent in the current quarter.

This severe price volatility, dubbed “RAMageddon” by some experts, is due to the global boom in artificial intelligence data center construction and the long-term agreements signed by technology giants such as Nvidia with memory manufacturers racing to increase capacity.

Making a statement on Wednesday, Micron announced that it has signed $22 billion worth of agreements with such long-term commitments from customers who want to secure their memory supplies.

Increasing costs are expected to seriously affect technological device sales this year. According to the forecasts of the research company IDC, the smartphone market is expected to experience the largest annual decline in its history with approximately 14 percent this year, while the computer (PC) market is expected to shrink by 11.3 percent.

“Conditions in the memory market are extremely challenging and will remain structurally so for the foreseeable future,” said Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies. made his assessment.

Bajarin also touched on concerns in the market, saying, “We were already receiving signals that Apple needed to raise prices. Even though they are in a better position than anyone else regarding the supply chain, there is a deep concern that the rest of the industry may have to increase prices at even higher rates than Apple.” he said.

One of the rare positive developments in the industry was the MacBook Neo, which was released in March. This model, which supported Apple’s strong sales expectations for the June quarter, even caused some industry analysts to revise their computer sales forecasts upwards.

However, with the new price increases, MacBook Neo lost its $ 100 price advantage over the XPS 13 laptop, which Dell introduced last month for $ 699, especially to compete with Neo. The model has also become more expensive than some budget-friendly Chromebook devices from Lenovo and Asus with its new price.