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As Apple raises the prices of its Mac and iPad lineups by up to $300, a trend of rising prices for IT devices appears to be spreading across the board, affecting smartphones, PCs, and gaming consoles.
This is driven by the surge in memory semiconductor prices due to the expansion of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which has increased the burden of manufacturing costs. Industry experts believe it is likely that this trend of price hikes will continue for new products in the second half of this year.
Apple increased the prices of MacBooks by $100 to $300 and iPads by $100 to $200 on June 25, local time.
On the official Korean website, the price of the MacBook Air has risen by 400,000 won to 2.19 million won, and the MacBook Pro by 600,000 won to 3.29 million won.
The entry-level MacBook Neo, which was launched in March of this year for 990,000 won with a focus on value for money, also saw a 200,000 won increase, pushing its price to 1.19 million won.
The iPad Air and iPad Pro prices have also increased by 300,000 to 400,000 won each, to 1.249 million won and 1.99 million won, respectively. Other product lines, including Apple TV and Vision Pro, have also seen price adjustments of several hundred thousand won.
This price adjustment is a result of reflecting rising component costs rather than simple currency fluctuations or marketing strategies.
Price hikes were already underway for smartphones, PCs, and gaming consoles due to rising memory costs, and with Apple joining in, the trend of price increases across core IT devices is becoming more pronounced.
Samsung Electronics broke its price-freeze stance maintained since 2023 by raising the price of its Galaxy S26 series, released in February this year, by more than 100,000 won compared to its predecessor.
The Ultra 512GB model exceeded a factory price of 2 million won for the first time.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7, released last year, also saw the factory price of their 512GB models increased by 94,600 won each in April this year, and laptop and tablet product lines have also seen price adjustments ranging from 100,000 to 900,000 won depending on the model.
Major PC manufacturers including LG Electronics, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Asus have also raised product prices or are considering doing so from late last year to the present.
Gaming consoles are no exception.
Nintendo has raised the prices of its Switch OLED, standard, and Lite models across the board, and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has also adjusted the prices of its PlayStation consoles upward.
At the heart of the rising IT device prices is a global memory supply shortage caused by increased investment in AI data centers.
As competition in generative AI intensifies, big tech companies are aggressively investing in building AI servers, and the resulting explosion in demand for high-performance memory is impacting the general-purpose memory market as well.
Major memory manufacturers are rapidly increasing the production ratio of high-profit HBM for AI servers and server-use DRAM.
Analysts suggest that as existing production lines are converted to focus on AI-use memory, production capacity for general-purpose DRAM and NAND flash used in smartphones and PCs has relatively decreased, leading to supply shortages and price increases.
Market research firm TrendForce analyzed that contract prices for general-purpose DRAM rose by 90 to 95 percent and NAND flash by 55 to 60 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter.
Counterpoint Research estimated that DRAM prices rose by more than 50 percent and NAND flash by more than 90 percent, and projected further increases of 58 to 63 percent for DRAM and 70 to 75 percent for NAND in the second quarter.
Memory, along with application processors (AP) and displays, is a core component that accounts for the largest portion of manufacturing costs for smartphones and laptops.
Furthermore, as generative AI features become core functions of smartphones and PCs, the memory capacity installed per device is steadily increasing.
Industry insiders explain that as more RAM and storage space are required to implement on-device AI, the combination of rising memory prices and increased installation capacity is driving up manufacturing costs.
This trend is expected to impact new products to be released in the second half of the year.
Industry experts believe it is likely that the factory prices of the iPhone 18 series, expected to be unveiled in September, and Apple's first foldable iPhone will also be raised to reflect the burden of rising memory prices.
There is speculation that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, scheduled to be unveiled next month, will be launched at a price of around 3 million won for the 256GB model, with the 1TB model nearing 4 million won.
Market research firms analyze that while investment in AI data centers continues, new production capacity expansion by memory manufacturers remains limited, making it difficult for the supply-demand imbalance to be resolved easily.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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