Apple’s MacBook and iPad Prices Rise on Memory Chip Shortage

Apple raised prices across most of its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups on Thursday, June 25, 2026, leaving only the iPhone untouched. The hikes, Apple’s first broad consumer price increase tied directly to the global memory chip crunch, ranged from 14 per cent on the entry MacBook Neo in India to nearly 89 per cent on the Apple TV 4K (128GB).

The increase followed a warning from outgoing CEO Tim Cook a week earlier that price rises had become “unavoidable” because of an “unsustainable” climb in memory chip costs. Apple, in its first formal statement on the move, blamed an “unprecedented” surge in memory and storage demand from AI data centers.

The Hike, by the Numbers

On Apple’s India online store, the increases ran from 14 per cent to 46 per cent across Macs, iPads, and HomePods. The MacBook Pro climbed Rs 50,000, from Rs 1,89,900 to Rs 2,39,900, while the iPad Pro 11-inch jumped Rs 40,000 to Rs 1,39,900 from Rs 99,900. The smallest percentage increase hit the MacBook Neo, Apple’s budget entry, which rose Rs 10,000 to Rs 79,900.

*Prices shown are for the base variants of each device.

At 46 per cent, the HomePod mini saw the steepest India hike, rising from Rs 10,900 to Rs 15,900. The HomePod climbed from Rs 32,900 to Rs 44,900, and the 11-inch iPad Air rose from Rs 64,900 to Rs 89,900. Apple’s US store saw parallel increases. Several products crossed the Rs 1 lakh mark in India for the first time, including the iPad Pro 11-inch at Rs 1,39,900.

Cook Called It a Hundred-Year Flood

A week earlier, Tim Cook had warned publicly, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on June 17, that the situation had crossed a line. “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” Cook told the Journal. He added: “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”

Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.

Tim Cook, CEO, Apple, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2026.

Cook called it a “hundred-year flood.” “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years,” he said. Asked whether Apple would build its own memory and storage factories, he was direct: “We can’t do everything. We know what we’re good at.” The company had already taken a similar step in May, raising the Mac mini’s entry price from $599 to $799 by dropping its lowest-tier configuration from the lineup.

By late April, Apple had already flagged the squeeze in its earnings call. Inventory had helped cushion the impact of rising memory costs and protect margins, but those benefits were expected to run out by the end of June, per Tim Cook’s comments on the memory shortage.

Where the Memory Went

At root, the squeeze is about DRAM and NAND flash memory. Same chips in every phone, laptop, and tablet. AI companies have been buying up huge volumes of advanced memory, particularly high-bandwidth memory used in AI data centers, to train and run large models. Memory suppliers, facing more orders than they can fill, have prioritized those high-margin server customers.

Apple laid out the framing in its June 25 statement. The consumer electronics industry is facing an “unprecedented challenge,” Apple said. The “rapid expansion of AI data centers” had created “an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage,” and “we have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” the statement added.

The numbers behind the squeeze are extreme. Industry tracker TrendForce reported DRAM prices increased by up to 98 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, with another 58 to 63 per cent rise expected in the current quarter. Counterpoint Research said memory and storage prices have quadrupled in the past three quarters. Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, and Dell have all raised prices or warned they would have to, in a market the industry has dubbed “RAMageddon.”

Long-term contracts keep pulling capacity off the spot market that consumer electronics makers depend on. Micron announced this week that it has secured $22 billion in long-term commitments from customers looking to lock in supply. “Memory prices have increased more than fourfold since the fourth quarter of 2025, and this single component has eroded the profit margins of most consumer electronics players,” Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint, told India price coverage with Counterpoint analyst reaction.

Until June 25, Apple had been absorbing most of the cost rise. The June 25 statement signalled an end to that.

Why iPhones Were Left Out

iPhone absent from the June 25 announcement. Apple’s official statement listed iPad and Mac as the products receiving immediate increases, with HomePods and Apple TVs alongside. iPhone prices remain unchanged for now, in India and globally.

No iPhone price hike, for now. IDC’s Nabila Popal was blunt about why: “The iPhone isn’t spared; a price hike is coming,” she said. “It was a smart strategic decision for Apple to announce the price increase before the fall launch, so the focus is on the new phones’ value rather than on the higher prices.” Apple’s September iPhone launch now has a clean run at the headlines.

Apple has more reason than most to shield iPhones. The iPhone still generates more than half of Apple’s total revenue, IDC’s Francisco Jeronimo told the Indian Express. Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research, told Moneycontrol that holding iPhone prices steady was “commendable, especially considering rising memory costs and broader macroeconomic headwinds,” and put the cost impact at roughly $200 per iPhone.

The Apple TV Took the Steepest Cut

In India, the most dramatic price change was not on a Mac or an iPad. The Apple TV 4K (128GB) jumped from Rs 16,900 to Rs 31,900, an increase of nearly 89 per cent, the steepest across Apple’s portfolio per Moneycontrol. The Apple TV 4K (64GB) climbed from Rs 14,900 to Rs 25,900, with Apple also raising US prices on both HomePod variants and both Apple TV variants. Apple’s Mac mini M4 in India rose 38 per cent.

Memory and storage exposure, by category. Even an entry-level streaming box now costs more in India than a MacBook Neo did at its launch. The full India pricing breakdown across Apple TVs, HomePods, Macs, and iPads is in our India price-hike summary.

Memory Squeeze in Numbers

• -6%: the drop in Apple’s stock on June 25, the worst single-session decline since April 2025, per CNBC.
• $270: the price increase TechInsights estimates Apple needs on the iPhone 18 Pro to hold its existing profit margin.
• 12GB: the RAM floor IDC expects across all new iPhone models as Apple moves to support the full Apple Intelligence suite.
• $599 to $799: the Mac mini’s effective entry-price jump after Apple dropped its lowest-tier configuration in May.

Why Apple’s Rivals Have It Worse

Apple isn’t alone in raising prices. Dell Technologies, HP, and Lenovo have all cautioned that higher memory costs will pressure PC pricing and margins. Samsung, Sony, and Microsoft have already raised prices on at least some products. Apple is the first major consumer electronics company to publicly announce a broad retail price hike tied to the AI-driven memory shortage.

US Price Changes on June 25

• MacBook Neo: $599 to $699
• MacBook Air 512GB: $1,099 to $1,299
• MacBook Pro 1TB: $1,699 to $1,999
• iPad Air 128GB: $599 to $749
• iPad Pro WiFi 256GB: $999 to $1,199

Smartphones down 14 per cent this year, per IDC, with the PC market forecast to fall 11.3 per cent. The combined supply constraints and rising prices are pushing many consumers to extend their replacement cycles, with some turning to the secondary market for used devices. Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for client devices at IDC, told the India price hikes across Mac, iPad, and HomePod that Apple is likely to weather the storm better than most rivals.

“Its customer base is more premium, less price-sensitive, and many buyers upgrade through trade-in and instalment programmes, reducing the impact of higher sticker prices,” Jeronimo said. The premium mix gives Apple more runway than commodity PC makers.

The Memory Boom Is Making a Few Suppliers Very Rich

Windfall on the supply side. Micron reported this week that its gross margin jumped from 39 per cent a year ago to 84.9 per cent in the most recent quarter, surpassing both Nvidia and Meta, per CNBC. Counterpoint, separately, said Micron’s gross margin reached 86 per cent, up sharply from 15 per cent a year earlier. Samsung and SK Hynix, the other two major memory makers, are reporting similar booms. For more on how Microsoft’s Xbox move is part of the same wave, see our piece on the cross-vendor pattern.

Pathak expects other PC and tablet makers to follow Apple’s lead. “The growing demand for AI infrastructure has fundamentally changed the memory supply chain, making higher bill-of-materials costs a structural challenge,” he told Moneycontrol. “We expect other PC and tablet OEMs to follow Apple’s lead by raising prices on select products, reducing discounts or shifting their portfolios further towards premium devices.” Counterpoint expects high memory prices to persist through 2027 and beyond.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Apple raise prices on Macs, iPads, and HomePods in June 2026?

Apple’s first public statement on the June 25, 2026 hike linked the move to a memory and storage squeeze triggered by AI data center demand. Outgoing CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal a week earlier that the cost surge had made price increases “unavoidable” and “unsustainable” to absorb.

Were iPhone prices raised too?

No. iPhone prices stayed put globally and in India. IDC’s Nabila Popal said an iPhone hike is “coming” and that Apple chose to raise other products first, so the September iPhone launch does not have to share the headlines with a price-increase story.

How much did Apple’s products go up in India?

Apple’s price increases in India ranged from Rs 5,000 on the HomePod mini (46 per cent) to Rs 50,000 on the base MacBook Pro (26 per cent). The Apple TV 4K (128GB) recorded the largest single percentage jump across Apple’s India portfolio at nearly 89 per cent, rising from Rs 16,900 to Rs 31,900.

What is driving the global memory chip shortage?

AI labs have soaked up most of the new high-bandwidth memory production for the servers behind large model training and inference. Memory suppliers, facing more demand than capacity, have prioritized those high-margin server customers over consumer electronics. By TrendForce’s count, DRAM is up 98 per cent in Q1 2026, with another 58 to 63 per cent rise expected this quarter.

When will Apple product prices come down?

Apple has not set a timeline. “The memory environment remains challenging and is expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future,” said Ben Bajarin, CEO of Creative Strategies. By Counterpoint’s read, memory prices stay elevated through 2027 and possibly beyond.