Apple hikes prices across Mac, iPad, and HomePod lineups in India as memory costs soar

The HomePod smart speaker now retails for Rs 44,900, a jump of Rs 12,000 from its previous price of Rs 32,900, while the HomePod mini has risen to Rs 15,900 from Rs 10,900.

The sweeping price revisions come days after outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted in an interview with Wall Street Journal that the company would not be able to protect consumers from the ongoing memory chip crisis any longer.

“We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly. 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, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac,” Apple said in a statement.

The memory price surge has dulled the outlook for smartphone and PC sales across the industry. Analysts estimate that rival device makers may have to raise prices even more sharply than Apple, whose deep supplier ties have reportedly cushioned it from the full hit.

Meanwhile, memory makers such as Micron have in ⁠recent months prioritised ​orders from AI chipmakers like Nvidia, helping them earn record profit but leaving little supply for electronics makers that have been forced to increase prices, according to a report by Reuters. 

In the US, Apple hiked the price of MacBook Air with 512 gigabytes of storage ​to $1,299 ​from $1,099, while the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage rose to $1,999 from $1,699, according to updated ⁠prices on its website. The iPad Air with 128 gigabytes of storage rose from $599 to $749, among other changes.