"Unfortunately, price increases are inevitable”. This was confirmed by Apple CEO Tim Cook himself in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Apple plans to raise the prices of its products to offset the sharp increase in the cost of memory and storage chips. Which could affect the upcoming iPhone 18.
No specific details yet
He did not reveal when the price increase would be implemented, the products involved or the amount of the increase. However, the iPhone 18 series, which is expected to be introduced in September, is likely to be among the products that will receive price adjustments. In addition, iPad and Mac prices are also seen as potentially increasing in the near future.
"Unfortunately, price increases are inevitable. We do everything we can to mitigate the impact of the price increases imposed on us, and we also try to protect our customers from these increased costs, but the situation is now no longer sustainable," Cook said.
Last month, Apple also increased the price of the Mac mini. The model with 512GB storage is now priced starting at RM3,349, while the 256GB storage option is no longer offered. The cost increase is driven by rising demand for memory and storage chips from the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, which is causing supply to become increasingly limited.
Apple has no plans to build its own memory or storage chip factories
At the same time, Apple also needs larger DRAM capacity in its devices to support new AI features. According to Cook, rising prices for memory chips and storage are now a challenge for Apple. He also said that Apple is ready to use its cash reserves to help increase memory supply, but did not detail what steps it will take.
Additionally, Apple has no plans to build its own memory or storage chip factories. Instead, the company will continue to rely on existing suppliers to meet its needs for these components. Meanwhile, Cook also described the current situation as extraordinary.
According to him, in his more than 40 years of experience in the electronics supply chain at IBM, Compaq and Apple, he has never seen commodity price fluctuations like those that have occurred in the past six months. Apart from Apple, several other technology companies, including Samsung, Microsoft, Sony and Dell, have also increased the prices of their products following the increase in component costs.
You might want to sit out of this
Personally, we feel that price increases for new products, especially Apple’s, are normal. However, this time the increase might be more than the usual RM200 or so. Unless you are a huge Apple fan in Malaysia, you might want to opt for the previous generation iPhones if you haven't bought them yet. After all, those models usually get nice discounts when new iPhones come out. What are your thoughts on the news? Feel free to leave your comments below.
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