Apple on Thursday announced raising the prices of its MacBooks and iPads due to a supply shortage of memory, passing the burden onto the consumer.
Apple, though, did not increase iPhone prices.
Shares of the tech behemoth dropped over 6% because of the news.
Apple raised the price of its entry-level MacBook Neo from $599 to $699, and raise its MacBook Air prices from $1,099 to $1,299. Its lowest priced product jumped almost 17%, creating potential sales problems for Apple’s newest laptop.
Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro price jumped from $1,699 to $1,999, and the 16-inch model increased from $2,699 to $2,999.
The company’s 11-inch iPad Air also surged from $599 to $749. The 13-inch version went from $799 to $949. The iPad Pro drastically increased as well. The 11-inch iPad Pro rose from $999 to $1,199, and the 13-inch model is up to $1,499 from $1,299.
Apple has warned about increasing prices in May when CEO Tim Cook noted the company’s growing margin pressure on an earnings call. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal the tech icon said prices increases were “unavoidable.”
Aggressive AI growth has significantly increased prices on ram, storage, and cpus, leaving Apple with no other corner to turn to. Companies like Microsoft and Dell were also forced to hike product prices.
A lot of investors seem to believe that the dramatic share drop in Apple is overblown, believing that Apple’s ecosystem is strong enough to keep current customers but may just prolong product upgrades.
Industry wide prices on products are increasing, customers will either pay the price or do without. Dan Ives seems to believe it’s a “1, maybe 2% churn on some of the high-end products,” going on to say “this was the right time.”
As AI continues to grow and hyperscalers continue funding it, it will create more supply chain struggles that we’re seeing. More data centers means more memory, and more processing chips for these data centers. Consumers products will continue competing for these materials, companies
