Rolfe Winkler, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link):
Apple plans to raise prices on its products to offset the surging
costs of memory and storage chips, Chief Executive Tim Cook said
in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal.“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said. “We’re
doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being
passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from
the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the
planned price increases, nor which products would be affected.
Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September
when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new
foldable iPhone. […]Cook said Apple wouldn’t use its cash and silicon expertise to
build its own memory and storage factories. “We can’t do
everything,” said Cook. “We know what we’re good at.” […] Cook
said during his time working in the electronics supply chain, from
IBM to Compaq to Apple, he had never seen a commodity price swing
like the one from the past six months. “This is a hundred-year
flood,” said Cook. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area
in over 40 years.”
Apple, to my recollection, has never before issued a warning about price increases. Keep in mind that Apple deals with prices in a very different way from its competitors. For Apple, prices are part of a product’s brand, so they don’t fluctuate with component costs. The trash can Mac Pro held its $3000 starting price for six years, despite its specs remaining effectively unchanged in that span.
So when Apple raises prices on the iPhone 18 Pro models this September (and, presumably, launches the folding iPhone “Ultra” with an eye-watering prices), expect those prices to stick. And if Apple expects RAM and SSD component pricing to continue rising through 2027 — which is what many anticipate — they might build that into the pricing now. Raise prices by (say) $200 now rather than $100 this year and another $100 next year.
Also, credit to Tim Cook for taking this one personally, months ahead of the iPhone 18 launch, rather than leaving it to John Ternus to serve up a surprise shit sandwich in his first keynote as CEO.
