NEW DELHI: Apple’s sharp increase in MacBook and iPad prices in India may be an early sign of broader price increases across the PC industry as the global artificial intelligence boom drives up memory and storage costs.The company on Thursday raised prices across much of its Mac and iPad portfolio, citing an unprecedented surge in component costs. The base 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip is now Rs 70,000 more expensive than its launch price, while several MacBook Air and iPad models have also seen significant increases. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” Apple told TOI. “We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products.“Industry executives and analysts say the same pressures are affecting PC makers worldwide as demand from AI infrastructure consumes growing volumes of memory and storage components.
“Demand from AI servers is soaking up DRAM and advanced memory capacity, leaving PC and device makers to compete for supply,” said Prabhu Ram, vice-president, Industry Research Group, CyberMedia Research (CMR). “What we’re seeing with Apple is unlikely to be an isolated case. If memory prices remain elevated, more brands will eventually have to pass on at least part of the increase to consumers.”Asus, which has implemented price increases in several markets this year, said the issue is industry-wide rather than specific to any single company. “The current pricing environment reflects broader supply-demand imbalances rather than brand-specific decisions,” Asus told TOI. “Memory and storage are foundational components across all notebooks and PCs, so the impact is visible across categories and industry. Devices with higher RAM and SSD capacities naturally experience a more direct effect,” the company added.Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research, said AI-driven demand has fundamentally altered the memory market.
