- JP Morgan believes the iPhone 18 Pro price increase could be less severe than other analysts have predicted, at just $50
- Another analyst has pointed out that chip price increases at TSMC will affect Apple, and its laptops are in a different situation than iPhones.
- The end result could be substantial increases in the price of laptops, while Apple’s smartphones emerge relatively unscathed.
We know that Apple products have future price increases (Tim Cook has made this clear in no uncertain terms), but according to the latest rumors, the iPhone could get away with a relatively slight price increase, and MacBooks could be hit much harder.
You might be surprised by the possibility that the next iPhone won’t go up that much, because previous rumors and math calculations suggested that the incoming iPhone 18 Pro could hit $1,299 in the US, a considerable increase from $200 (with a similar price increase for other countries). Others have theorized that there could be an even bigger jump than this.
However, as noted by Phone Arena, Creative Strategies tech analyst Max Weinbach posted on
Contrary to other analysis, JP Morgan believes it could be more in line with a $50 price increase, since while memory costs will put a lot of pressure on Apple (as a Wccftech report recently highlighted, noting that the company faces a “tag shock heading into the third quarter”), the company apparently has ways to mitigate those increases elsewhere. One of those savings would be achieved by switching to Apple’s own modem for the new iPhone, for example.
Another way Apple could theoretically ease pressure on smartphone prices is to recoup some money by charging a premium for the rumored foldable iPhone Ultra, which will inevitably be expensive for those who want the latest and greatest tech (and it looks like the foldable is coming this year).
As for potential MacBook price increases, Apple doesn’t have the same room to maneuver in terms of offsetting other component costs with its laptops. And as Tom’s Hardware discovered, analyst (and former Bloomberg reporter) Tim Culpan just spread the rumor that TSMC is apparently raising chip prices for customers (from 3nm processes to 7nm and older products) on the order of 5% to 10%.
This affects a group of companies that use TSMC to manufacture their chips, but in particular AMD, Nvidia and Apple. For Apple, the heavier MacBook CPUs will be hit harder than mobile silicon, and it’s another unwanted pressure on the affordable MacBook Neo.
As Culpan jokes at the end of his article: “Maybe those red MacBook Neos will arrive after all.” Are you stumped as to what exactly that means? Let’s dive into that below.
Analysis: cook the MacBooks
Arguably Apple’s biggest problem here is keeping the MacBook Neo at its tempting base price, in the face of these “inevitable” price increases, as Tim Cook has called them. Mainly because the price is very low for an Apple laptop, and its popularity and demand means that production of the Neo is rumored to have increased massively.
Culpan has previously floated the theory that Apple will either have to apply price increases to the MacBook Neo – and perhaps soften that blow with new colors (which is what the ‘Red Neo’ comment is referring to) – or simply ditch the current base variant and offer the top-tier Neo as a base. The latter is basically a way to apply a hundred-dollar price increase without having to technically increase prices, and what makes this seem more likely is that Apple did exactly that as a tactic with the Mac mini recently.
We don’t know how this will play out yet, but it looks increasingly likely that there will be some sizable upward moves in MacBook prices, while the iPhone may escape the worst.
A price increase of just $50 for the iPhone would be welcomed by many at this point as an effectively stable price, given all the talk of a couple hundred dollars or more over the price of the current generation. And perhaps that’s the point: Since consumers fear the worst for the iPhone 18 Pro, they will eventually be relieved if this is the case.
In any case, I’ve been saying this for a while, if you’re thinking about buying a new MacBook, it’s very likely time to upgrade now, or soon, especially in the case of the Neo (unless you really want that red color, or whatever flashy color Apple can come up with to distract people from the new price).
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