Tim Cook explained the price increases on Mac and iPad not by corporate greed, but by a force majeure situation in the memory market — a situation he compared to a once-in-a-hundred-year event. According to him, Apple did not plan to review prices, but the sharp increase in chip costs made this decision inevitable.
What Really Happened with Memory
Prices for DRAM and NAND chips began rising in 2025 due to simultaneous demand from server manufacturers for artificial intelligence and regular electronics manufacturers. AI companies are buying memory for data centers in such volumes that traditional gadget makers — from Apple to Samsung — receive smaller quotas at higher prices.
Cook confirmed that high memory costs will persist for at least the next quarter. The company is partially offsetting this with cheaper other components and accumulated inventory, but it will not be possible to fully neutralize the price increase.
Cook refrained from making predictions about iPhone 18 prices, which Apple will present in September — this hints that memory price increases could also be felt in smartphones.
Practical Conclusion for Buyers
If you plan to buy a new laptop, tablet, or phone with large memory capacity — it's worth doing so sooner rather than waiting for sales. Component shortages typically last several quarters, and prices during this time tend to creep up rather than fall.
This applies not only to Apple. The same DRAM and NAND shortage is hitting the entire industry — from gaming consoles to server equipment, which then affects the cost of cloud services and subscriptions.
Strategy More Important Than a Quarter
Cook emphasized that when setting prices, Apple considers not only the profitability of an individual product, but sales volumes, revenue, and margins as a whole, focusing on long-term strategy rather than single-quarter metrics. This explains why the company was not in a hurry to review prices earlier — and why it did so now, when there was no alternative left.
The question is whether the memory shortage will become a permanent factor in pricing throughout the industry, or whether the market will stabilize by the end of the year, when manufacturers ramp up production to meet new demand from AI companies.
