Apple is raising prices on several of its most popular products, according to the report, in a step that affects some of the company's best selling lines. The report frames the increase as one of the major economic stories of the day, drawing attention because it touches devices that are widely owned and used across the United States, and because it follows public signals from the company that higher prices were on the way.
The scale of the increase is spelled out for two of the company's core product lines. According to the report, several MacBook and iPad models now cost consumers between 100 and 300 dollars more than they did before, meaning that buyers looking at the company's laptops and tablets will face a noticeably higher bill at the point of purchase depending on the model they choose.
The company has tied the move to its costs rather than to changes in the products themselves. According to the report, the increase comes just weeks after chief executive Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal that such a step would be, in his words, unavoidable, pointing to surging memory and storage costs as the pressure behind the decision to charge customers more.
Because that warning was made only a short time ago, the new prices are being read as the company following through on what it had already flagged. According to the report, the timing, coming just weeks after the chief executive's comments, links the rises directly back to the explanation he had given, leaving little doubt about the reasoning the company is putting forward.
Not every product is caught up in the change, however. According to the report, iPhone prices are expected to remain the same for now, which means that buyers of the company's best known device are, at least for the time being, spared from this latest round of increases even as the cost of its computers and tablets goes up.
Taken together, the changes concentrate the impact on a specific part of the company's range. According to the report, with the rises landing on MacBook and iPad models while the iPhone is held steady, the burden falls on those buying computers and tablets, and the company has pinned the move on component costs such as memory and storage rather than on any redesign of the devices.
Further detail has since put numbers and an explanation to the increase. According to the report, the rises reach up to 25 percent on some products, with the iPad Air, for example, becoming 150 dollars more expensive at 750 dollars, while iPhone prices are not going up. In a statement, the company blamed a shortage of memory chips, pointing to how the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and the buildout of data centres has driven up demand for memory, and said it had never seen a component price increase this much this quickly, warning that prices in other categories, and at other companies, could rise in the months ahead.