Apple hikes Mac, iPad prices as chip crunch squeezes pockets

Apple said it couldn’t shield customers from rising component costs anymore.

An exacerbating chip shortage has led Apple to hike up prices for several of its products. Price jumps go from as little as €40 for the HomePod Mini, to nearly €1,000 for the Mac Studio M3 Ultra, though iPhones are unaffected for now.

Apple share prices dropped more than 6pc yesterday, before making marginal gains in pre-market trading today (26 June). Prices, however, have dropped more than 10pc in a month.

“The rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage”, a company spokesperson told news publications, adding that Apple has “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly”.

Apple said that the worsening situation meant that it couldn’t shield customers from the rising component costs any longer.

The company previously raised prices for the iPhone 17 Pro, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, but this is the first time it is hiking rates on products across several categories at once.

iPads will now cost EU customers €100 more at €529; the iPad mini will jump by €120 to €719. The new MacBook Neo, launched in March, is also seeing a price hike of €140, now costing customers €839 to purchase in the EU.

Outgoing CEO Tim Cook told investors in April that AI-led component shortages would constrain supply for Mac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio and MacBook Neo for the June quarter.

“Realistically, on the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio, I believe it will take several months to reach supply-demand balance,” he said at the time. “We are not at the point where we are saying this is going to end anytime soon.”

Chief financial officer Kevan Parekh, meanwhile, said that iPhones faced supply constraints in the March quarter. Bloomberg Intelligence expects iPhone prices to also rise, likely targeting the Pro models.

Apple isn’t alone in suffering from a shortage in memory chips. According to Counterpoint Research, global smartphone shipments are poised to drop nearly 14pc in 2026, with the squeeze particularly affecting entry-level and mid-range smartphones. Prices are expected to jump by as much as 13pc this year.

Meanwhile, rising prices allow for second-hand and refurbished sellers to fill in gaps with cheaper and environmentally better alternatives, according to Refurbed co-founder Kilian Kaminski.

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