Mac and iPad prices have risen across the board, why hasn't the iPhone?

Apple has just launched a surprise attack on users without any warning.

After Apple's online store was briefly taken offline and then relaunched, the prices of all Mac and iPad models skyrocketed.

The price of the MacBook Neo increased by 900 yuan, the MacBook Air by 1,500 yuan, and the MacBook Pro's price hike reached a staggering 2,500 yuan. Even the iPad Air and Pro series, which have always been the best - selling models, saw price increases of 1,200 yuan and 1,800 yuan respectively. Among them, the Mac Studio had the highest price increase, with its starting price rising from 16,499 yuan to 19,999 yuan, a jump of 3,500 yuan.

Only the price of the iPhone remained unchanged.

This is a direct price increase that Apple hasn't done in years. In its official statement, Apple even left an unusual note: Further price increases are still possible in the future.

As soon as the news came out, Apple's stock on the US market fell immediately. Just a few months ago, Apple was running a full - scale price - cut promotion in the Chinese market, but now it has suddenly reversed course and raised prices significantly.

Many people don't understand Apple's abnormal move this time. But the more interesting question hidden behind this price adjustment is: Since cost pressure is an industry - wide issue, why can the iPhone still hold its ground?

1. The hotter AI gets, the more expensive memory becomes

During an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Tim Cook said bluntly: This is a once - in - a - century flood. In over 40 years, I've never seen such a situation in any industry.

He wasn't talking about tariffs or exchange rates, but memory chips.

In the past 12 months, the prices of DRAM and NAND flash memory have quadrupled. The price of a DDR5 memory module has risen from $5.5 to over $40 in a year. The cost of a 12GB LPDDR5X running memory for mobile phones has increased from 200 yuan to nearly 600 yuan. The price of a 1TB solid - state drive has gone up from $45 to $90.

The core reason is that AI data centers are frantically snatching up production capacity.

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron control over 90% of the world's DRAM production capacity. In the past year, these three giants have mobilized 70% to 90% of their advanced production capacity to produce HBM (High - Bandwidth Memory), which is the most core component of NVIDIA's AI servers.

Producing one HBM chip consumes the production capacity of three ordinary DDR5 chips. By 2026, 70% of the world's high - end memory chips will be consumed by AI servers, leaving only 30% for mobile phones, computers, and game consoles.

Micron's CEO publicly stated that they can currently only meet 50% to two - thirds of the demand from some key customers. "This is the biggest supply - demand gap in the industry's history."

Previously, Apple was able to withstand the cost pressure by signing long - term contracts in advance to lock in prices and stockpiling a large number of low - cost chips. This is also the reason why Apple was the last brand to raise prices among all brands in the past two years.

However, starting from June, this batch of low - cost inventory has basically been used up.

2. The price increases of Mac and iPad are shielding the iPhone

Everyone has noticed the price increases. But few people ask a more crucial question: Why are the prices of Mac and iPad increasing, rather than the iPhone?

The price of memory is rising across the board. The LPDDR5X used in the iPhone is also getting more expensive. It's impossible that only the chips for Mac and iPad have become more expensive while those for the iPhone have remained the same.

The real reason is that the iPhone plays a completely different role in Apple's ecosystem.

The iPhone is Apple's absolute lifeline. Not only does it contribute the largest share of revenue, but it is also the moat and core entry point for the entire Apple ecosystem. Users enter the Apple world through the iPhone and then purchase AirPods, Apple Watch, subscribe to iCloud, use Apple Pay, and download apps from the App Store.

The iPhone is the first button. Once the price of the iPhone increases, especially in the Chinese market where Huawei, Xiaomi, and vivo are aggressively competing for market share with competitive prices and strong product capabilities, Apple will not only affect the sales of one product but also the foundation of its entire ecosystem.

So Apple would rather absorb the cost on the iPhone itself than touch its price at this time.

Mac and iPad are different types of products, mostly defined as productivity tools. People who buy the MacBook Pro are designers, programmers, content creators, and corporate purchasers; those who buy the iPad Pro are painters, students, film post - production workers, and business people. These people judge prices differently. They don't just think about whether something is expensive but rather whether the money is well - spent.

For productivity tools, a 1,500 - yuan price increase with a 20% increase in efficiency is a worthwhile trade - off. For mass - consumer products, a 500 - yuan price increase may drive consumers to buy Android devices.

Apple's current strategy is clear: use the thicker profit margins of the productivity product line to subsidize the mass - consumer product line. Let Mac and iPad bear the brunt of the price increase first, and try to maintain the price of the iPhone for as long as possible.

This is not an accident.

Apple's past price - adjustment strategy has never been to directly increase the list price. It prefers to cancel the low - end models, improve the entry - level configuration, and guide users to buy the more expensive Pro models. This direct price increase shows that the cost pressure has become too great for conventional means to handle.

But even so, it has chosen to start with the productivity product line.

3. The more the chip industry earns, the worse off the downstream is

One day before Apple announced the price increase, on June 24th, Micron released its latest quarterly financial report, with an adjusted gross profit margin of 80.7% (commonly simplified to 80% in the market).

SK Hynix had an operating profit margin of 72% in the first quarter of 2026, surpassing NVIDIA and TSMC and setting a record for the highest single - quarter operating profit margin in the global semiconductor industry. Samsung Electronics' market value exceeded 2,000 trillion won on June 1st, reaching a new high in the company's history.

The memory chip companies are making huge profits. The next day, Apple raised prices.

The upstream is making huge profits, and the downstream is starting to pass on the costs to consumers. Money flows from your pocket to Apple, from Apple to the chip companies, and from the chip companies to the AI data centers.

The extra 900 yuan you pay for a MacBook is essentially a tax on the AI industry.

You may not need to use AI, buy NVIDIA stocks, or care about large - scale models. But buying a mobile phone, a computer, or a game console will all be more expensive. Because the memory chips needed to make these products are being snatched away by AI at higher prices and in larger quantities.

Deutsche Bank has given this phenomenon a name: Memory inflation tax.

4. Inflation is spreading from mobile phones to game consoles

Apple is just the biggest one. Before it, price increases have already occurred across the board.

Domestic mobile phone brands such as OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Honor have all adjusted their prices. Mid - range phones have seen price increases of 500 to 800 yuan, flagship phones have increased by over 1,000 yuan, and the 1TB version is up to 2,200 yuan more expensive. The market for 1,000 - yuan phones is disappearing.

HP has publicly stated that memory now accounts for 35% of the material cost of laptops, compared to only 15% to 18% before. Lenovo's CFO admitted that the company is stockpiling memory chips, and this stockpiling behavior in turn exacerbates the shortage and drives up prices.

Game players are even worse off. SanDisk's 8TB solid - state drive dedicated to the PS5 is priced at nearly 25,000 yuan, which can buy three top - of - the - line PS5 Pros.

Morgan Stanley predicts that the average price of smartphones and PCs in the US will increase by about 15% this year.

Moreover, this is not a temporary fluctuation.

Goldman Sachs estimates that in 2026, the supply - demand gap for DRAM will be 4.9%, for NAND 4.2%, and for HBM 5.1%, all of which are the most severe in the past 15 years. It takes 18 to 24 months to build a new production line for memory chips, and the new production capacity will not be released until the second half of 2027 at the earliest. TechInsights predicts that memory prices will continue to rise next year.

This means that the price increase may not be a one - time event. If you buy an iPhone 18 in the second half of the year, it will most likely be more expensive. Apple is shielding the iPhone, but the pressure won't stop.

5. Who will ultimately pay for the prosperity of AI?

In the past two years, we've been focusing on how hot AI is. NVIDIA has a market value of $5 trillion, SK Hynix and Samsung have reached new highs, and OpenAI is preparing to go public. Everyone is accelerating and placing bets.

But today's price increase by Apple shows us another side of the AI boom.

The $800 billion in capital expenditure that Silicon Valley giants have poured into AI won't disappear into thin air. It will be transmitted step by step along the supply chain, from cloud providers to chip companies, from chip companies to device manufacturers, from device manufacturers to brand owners, and finally to consumers.

For every additional trillion dollars the AI industry burns each year, mobile phones and computers around the world will become more expensive. You may think you're just watching a technological revolution, but in fact, you're already paying for it.

To some extent, Apple's price increase is also the last change Tim Cook is making to Apple's finances before stepping down and handing over the reins in September this year.

Facing the irreversible impact on the supply chain, he would rather bear the plunge in Apple's US stock and public controversy than break the iron rule of not increasing the list price. He must settle this "AI tax" during his tenure and leave a relatively safe and clean financial foundation for his successor by forcibly increasing the profits of Mac and iPad.

Apple's choice today, to let Mac and iPad bear the brunt and shield the iPhone, precisely shows that this cost is so high that even Apple can't fully absorb it.

[Beyond the Page]

Apple's strongest ability in the past forty years is not product design.

It's pricing.

It always knows how much a product should be sold for to make users feel that it's expensive but worth it. This pricing intuition has allowed Apple to reap the thickest profits in the smartphone era, the tablet era, and the wearable device era.

Today, this ability is being squeezed by external forces for the first time, and it's not the competitors forcing it.

When even Apple is forced to raise prices, it shows that the cost of this AI boom has begun to spill over from the industry to ordinary people.

And this may just be the beginning.

This article is from the WeChat official account “Beyond the Page”. Author: Huahua. Republished with permission from 36Kr.