Tim Cook says RAM expenses are unsustainable, Apple will raise prices

Apple plans to raise prices on several products in response to the ongoing memory shortage. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, CEO Tim Cook stated that price increases are unavoidable. He said the company is doing its best to mitigate the huge increases being passed on and has tried to shield customers, but the situation has become unsustainable.

Cook did not specify when the price hikes will occur or which products will be affected. Apple has already stopped selling the Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM in March and later raised the starting price of the Mac Mini to $799 after dropping the cheaper $599 option. Analyst Tim Culpan has suggested Apple could discontinue the base configuration of the MacBook Neo, keeping the $699 model with 512GB of storage.

The memory shortage is driven by AI companies demanding more memory for their data centers, with suppliers struggling to keep up. This has led to surging RAM and storage costs, as well as price increases across game consoles, laptops, and other devices. Cook noted that memory pricing and supply need to return to reasonable levels for consumer products.

Apple is preparing to unveil its latest iPhone lineup later this year, but it is unclear how much the memory shortage will impact pricing. The Wall Street Journal estimates the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro could cost $1,299, up from $1,099 for the iPhone 17 Pro.