After the entire Android market collectively pushed up their prices, Apple finally caved to cost pressures and announced their own price adjustments. On June 25, the tech giant confirmed hikes across its Mac, iPad, and smart home device lines. The culprit? A massive surge in demand for memory chips and storage caused by the explosive expansion of AI data centers.
Let’s break down the new numbers: The MacBook Neo is starting at $699 (up from $599), while the MacBook Air jumps to $1,299 (from $1,099). If you’re eyeing the 14-inch entry-level MacBook Pro, expect to pay $1,999 instead of $1,699. For tablets, the 11-inch iPad Pro goes from $999 to $1,199, and the iPad Air sees a steeper climb from $599 to $749. This is a global price increase across the board, but here’s the kicker: iPhone prices are staying exactly where they are. Notably, the 11-inch iPad Pro and iPad Air have seen price hikes exceeding 20%.
An Apple spokesperson put it bluntly: “The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an unprecedented spike in demand for memory and storage.” They admitted they’ve never seen component prices rise this fast or this high before. While they tried their best to absorb these costs for consumers in the past, they noted, “We’ve reached the point where we simply have to start raising prices.”
Curious about what this means right here in China? We contacted Apple’s official customer service that evening, and their response was a bit of a mystery: “We haven’t received specific details regarding these price changes yet.”
Actually, Apple CEO Tim Cook had already tipped his hand recently. During an interview on June 18, he openly discussed the inevitability of higher prices. He explained that Apple plans to raise product costs specifically to counteract the skyrocketing expenses of memory and storage chips.
Cook was quite candid about the situation: “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We’ve been doing our absolute best to shield our customers from these massive cost surges, but honestly, we can’t keep this up forever.”
At that time, however, Cook declined to specify exactly when these hikes would hit, how much they’d be, or which products would be affected.
Before this announcement, the general consensus among analysts was that the next big wave of price hikes would likely land on the iPhone 18 series coming this September. Rumors suggested the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max would carry a higher price tag than last year’s models. Research firm TechInsights estimated that manufacturing costs for the next-gen iPhone Pro could jump by around $270.
Since the explosion in AI computing power, data centers have gobbled up most of the available storage chip capacity. This has triggered a rare, industry-wide price boom, leaving manufacturers struggling with tight supplies of critical components like LPDDR DRAM used in smartphones.
Data from TrendForce paints a grim picture: By Q1 2026, contract prices for smartphone DRAM are projected to skyrocket by 88% to 93%, with NAND flash following suit at a 33% to 38% increase. Consequently, the share of storage chips in total phone material costs has exploded from a typical 10%-15% to a staggering 30%-40%. In some budget-friendly phones, that number might even approach 50%.
Counterpoint Research adds that this cycle of rising storage costs isn’t going away anytime soon—it’s expected to last until the end of 2027. They predict that the average selling price of phones in China will climb 15% to 25% in 2026. What does this mean for you? More brands will inevitably follow Apple’s lead, especially for mid-range models and devices with large storage capacities.
In this environment, it’s become standard practice for consumer electronics to pass on costs to buyers. Almost every major brand—including Samsung, OPPO, vivo, Huawei, and Honor—has already increased their prices to varying degrees.
Take OPPO and OnePlus, for example. Back on March 16, they announced price hikes of 200 to 500 RMB for their A-series, K-series, and flagship models. Their foldable Find X9 Ultra saw an even bigger jump of over 1,000 RMB. vivo and iQOO quickly followed, adjusting their entire lineup starting March 18. The X300 and iQOO 15 series went up by 300 to 600 RMB, with mid-range models seeing hikes as high as 800 RMB.
Honor took a quieter approach, tweaking prices directly at the terminal. Their Magic V6 foldable with large storage rose by about 10%, while their digital and X series bumped up by 300 to 500 RMB. Samsung went even further, hiking the standard S26 series by 1,000 RMB and the Ultra version by a whopping 1,600 RMB.
On April 3, Wei Siqi, GM of Xiaomi’s China Marketing Department, admitted that despite their best efforts to buffer the impact of rising memory costs, the magnitude of this price surge completely caught them off guard.
“To ensure normal supply and maintain product quality, we had no choice but to adjust the recommended retail prices for some of our current models,” Wei clarified. She highlighted three specific models: Starting April 11, the REDMI K90 Pro Max went up by 200 RMB. Meanwhile, the Turbo 5 and Turbo 5 Max dropped their New Year discounts, though they still offered a 200 RMB subsidy for the 512GB versions. She emphasized that Xiaomi is trying hard to limit these price hikes to the smallest possible range of devices.
Xiaomi Group President Lu Weibing echoed these sentiments on Weibo, noting that the intensity of this memory price hike was far beyond expectations. Prices for the same version of memory compared to last year’s first quarter have nearly quadrupled.
“A 12+512GB configuration jumped by about 1,500 RMB, and the 16+1TB version is absolutely ridiculous,” Lu said. “This puts huge pressure on REDMI, which has always prided itself on extreme cost-performance value. That’s why we were forced to make small price increases or revert some models to their original prices.”
Additionally, Yu Chengdong, Chairman of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, also mentioned in April that pricing new phones has become incredibly difficult. He noted that flagship models face cost increases of 1,200 to 1,500 RMB depending on the configuration, warning that if things get too bad, they might have to raise prices too.
It turns out Apple managed to stay price-stable for so long thanks to its massive scale, allowing them to sign long-term lock-in deals years ago and stockpile cheap chips. However, as of June, that stash of low-cost inventory is basically gone. From now on, all new releases and restocks must be purchased at current market highs, effectively doubling hardware costs.
Cook himself warned back in April during the earnings call: “After the June quarter, storage costs will have an increasingly significant impact on our business. We expect storage costs to rise substantially.”
The latest financial report shows strong performance despite these challenges. For the second quarter of fiscal 2026 (ending March 28, 2026), Apple reported revenue of $111.184 billion, a 16.6% year-over-year increase. Net profit hit $29.578 billion, up 19.4%. Interestingly, iPhone sales grew by 22%, and the Services segment set a new quarterly revenue record.
