Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs

Apple is raising its prices to offset the precocious outgo of representation and storage, CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal. Apple is nary longer capable to sorb the accrued prices and volition request to walk immoderate of the outgo connected to consumers.


"Unfortunately, terms increases are unavoidable," said Cook. "We're doing our champion to mitigate the immense increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the concern has go unsustainable."

Cook did not accidental which products volition get terms increases oregon however overmuch pricing volition spell up. The iPhone 18 Pro and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max coming successful September could beryllium much costly than the iPhone 17 Pro and ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ Max. Prices connected iPads and Macs could spell up successful the adjacent future.

Apple already raised the terms of the Mac mini from $599 to $799 by eliminating its lowest-tier model. Apple has besides eliminated respective higher-tier ‌Mac mini‌ and Mac Studio options.

Growing request for representation and retention chips from AI companies has led to spot shortages and higher costs. The ‌Wall Street Journal‌ suggests Apple volition request to summation instrumentality costs "substantially" to support its existent nett margins fixed the outgo of representation chips and SSDs. Research steadfast TechInsights claims Apple volition request to marque the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ astir $270 much costly to support its existing nett margin.

Apple is struggling much with representation chips, but retention chips are besides an issue. "There's little proviso astatine a clip erstwhile consumers privation devices and the representation guys are passing on immense terms increases," Cook told The ‌Wall Street Journal‌. Cook said Apple volition usage its currency to summation representation supply, but helium did not springiness details connected what that means.

Apple does not program to make its ain representation and retention factories. "We can't bash everything," Cook said. "We cognize what we're bully at."

While representation spot makers similar Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are expanding accumulation capacity, overmuch of that added capableness volition prioritize server chips. Demand for consumer-device chips is expected to proceed to outpace supply. At the aforesaid time, Apple needs to summation the DRAM successful its devices to enactment caller AI features. Cook likened the representation shortages to a hundred-year flood. "I've ne'er seen thing similar it successful immoderate country successful implicit 40 years," helium said.

Apple is 1 of the largest purchasers of representation and retention worldwide, but it is apt reluctant to marque the aforesaid deals AI companies do. Those deals impact signing multi-year agreements with a ample currency prepayment.

Multiple companies person already raised their prices, including Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, and Dell.

This article, "Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs" archetypal appeared connected MacRumors.com

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