‘Price increases are unavoidable’: AI-driven memory chip demand triggers price increase of up to S$600 for Apple products

SINGAPORE: The artificial intelligence-driven demand for memory chips has triggered price increases across some Apple products globally, leading to increases of up to S$600 in Singapore.

Price changes reported by HardwareZone showed increases across Apple’s Macs, iPads, and accessories. iPhones have not been affected so far.

The Mac Studio saw the largest increase, rising by S$600 from S$2,899 to S$3,499, followed by the 14-inch MacBook Pro, which went up by S$500 to S$3,499, and the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which went up by S$350 to S$3,999.

Prices for the 15-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Air, iMac, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro also rose by S$300.

Other increases were also seen for the iPad Air (+S$250), iPad mini (+S$150), MacBook Neo (+S$100), Apple TV 4K (+S$100), HomePod (+S$66.05), and the HomePod mini (+S$38.75).

The price increases came after CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal in an interview last week that they plan to raise prices on Apple products to offset the surging costs of memory and storage chips.

“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said, explaining that while the company has been trying to shield customers from price increases, “the situation has become unsustainable.”

The Apple CEO had also flagged in April that beyond the June quarter, memory costs would drive an increasing impact on the business, as reported by Reuters.

Costs of memory and storage chips have increased and are expected to continue increasing by next year as AI servers are gobbling up more of these components, tightening supply even for major device makers such as Apple.

Since last year, the price of memory and storage chips has quadrupled. /TISG

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