Apple on Thursday increased the prices of its Mac computers, iPad tablets, and several accessories worldwide, directly attributing the move to an unprecedented surge in memory and storage costs driven by the build-out of artificial intelligence data centres. The adjustments, which took immediate effect on its online store, ranged from $30 to $300 in the United States, with the 14-inch MacBook Pro rising from $1,699 to $1,999 and the iPad Air from $599 to $749. The iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods lines were left unchanged for now, though the company indicated further adjustments on other products could follow. Apple shares fell as much as 6.2 percent in New York, erasing roughly $275 billion in market value in the steepest intraday decline since April 2025.

The price action marks the first time a major consumer electronics firm has explicitly linked retail price increases to the AI infrastructure race. Apple’s statement described “an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage” from AI data centres, adding that it had “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.” The underlying dynamic has been building since late 2025: contract prices for DRAM and NAND flash memory have recorded quarterly jumps of 50 to 100 percent, according to data from TrendForce and Counterpoint Research. Memory manufacturers such as Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have prioritised high-margin orders from AI server customers, leaving consumer device makers competing for constrained supply—a phenomenon the industry has dubbed “RAMageddon.”

Apple’s decision reverberated across markets. In India, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip saw a Rs 70,000 increase, while European prices for the MacBook Neo rose from €699 to €799. The company, which reported $416 billion in revenue last fiscal year, said it had “shielded” customers from component cost increases until now but had reached a point where absorbing them was no longer sustainable. The move follows similar price hikes by Microsoft on its Xbox consoles and Surface laptops, by Sony and Nintendo on gaming hardware, and by PC makers Lenovo, Dell, and HP. Analysts in London and Mumbai noted that Apple’s deep supplier relationships had delayed the impact, but the breadth of the increases—affecting everything from the entry-level MacBook Neo to the Vision Pro headset—underscored the severity of the supply-demand imbalance.

The transition to a new chief executive adds a layer of uncertainty. Tim Cook, who steps down on 1 September, had warned in a Wall Street Journal interview that price rises were “unavoidable,” comparing the situation to a “hundred-year flood.” His successor, John Ternus, will inherit the crisis just days before the expected unveiling of the next iPhone generation. Research director Tarun Pathak of Counterpoint Research told CNBC that memory cost pressures could add $150 to $200 to upcoming iPhone models. With Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley forecasting that chip undersupply will persist through at least 2027, the next factual milestone is Apple’s September product launch, where the pricing of the iPhone 18 series will reveal whether the memory crunch extends to the company’s most important revenue driver.