Apple may raise Mac prices in the second quarter of this year due to rising memory chip costs

[ Gearbest Technology News]In the past six months, driven by the large-scale construction of AI data centers, the supply of DRAM and NAND flash memory has been tight, and the prices of some categories have increased nearly four times in a few months. At present, Lenovo, HP and other five major PC manufacturers in the world have announced that they will increase product prices. Against this background, the market is paying attention to whether Apple will adjust its memory upgrade pricing strategy for its Mac product line.

According to foreign media “9to5mac”, although the new M5 series MacBook Pro will be released in the short term, the industry generally believes that Apple is likely to maintain the current price system, and the real price adjustment pressure may be postponed to the M6 ​​series models released in the summer of 2026.

Currently, Apple's charges for Mac memory upgrades remain high: upgrading from 16GB of unified memory to 32GB requires an additional $400, while upgrading from 64GB to 128GB requires an additional $800. Comparing open market retail prices, a 16GB DDR5 memory module currently sells for about $230, and a 64GB kit is about $700. Although the LPDDR5X unified memory used by Apple is not completely comparable to consumer-grade DDR5, its price premium is still significant. Analysts pointed out that even in the current environment of rising costs, Apple will not suffer losses in the short term by virtue of its previously signed long-term supply agreement, so it lacks an urgent motivation to raise prices immediately.

However, the situation may change after the second quarter of 2026. According to industry analysis reports cited by CNBC, by the end of the first quarter of 2026, memory prices are expected to increase by about 55% compared with the fourth quarter of 2025. If this trend continues, Apple's existing memory pricing structure may not be able to cover costs, and profit margins will be significantly compressed, especially in high-capacity configurations. More importantly, as AI chip manufacturers such as Nvidia gain higher priority from core suppliers such as TSMC, Apple's bargaining advantage in the supply chain is facing challenges, and the effectiveness of the original long-term agreement may weaken.

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