Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with the American newspaper Wall Street Journal that the company plans to increase the prices of its products to offset the rise in the costs of memory and storage chips.
Cook, who will step down as CEO this year, defined the readjustment as “inevitable”. “We are doing everything we can to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed on to us, and we have tried to protect our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable,” he told the report published this Wednesday (17).
The interview does not provide details about the deadline, scope and size of the increases. The company’s next major launch is expected in September, when Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 18 line with a foldable version. The price change may occur before then, especially for Macs and iPads, says the WSJ text.
Memory and storage chips are essential for most computing devices, such as smartphones, laptops, video game consoles, medical equipment, and even cars. The cost of producing consumer goods is being affected by a shortage of memory chips caused by growing demand from AI (artificial intelligence) companies for the resources.
In the first quarter of this year alone, memory chip prices doubled from the previous period and are expected to increase by up to 63% in the current quarter due to demand from AI data centers.
In Apple’s case, passing on higher costs while maintaining profit margins would add US$270 (R$1,378) to the price of the next iPhone Pro model, according to research by the company TechInsights cited by the WSJ. This year’s model starts at US$1,099 in the United States.
The company also estimates that chip prices will continue to increase until 2027.
According to Cook, both memory and storage chip prices are problems for the company, although it has focused on the memory chip market in particular.
Three companies dominate the memory chip market: the South Koreans Samsung and SK Hynix and the American Micron. Top storage chip manufacturers include these three companies, as well as Kioxia and Sandisk.
Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron surpassed the US$1 trillion mark in market value this year. Their share prices, along with their profits, have exploded over the past 12 months: Micron and SK Hynix shares are up more than 800%, while Kioxia and Sandisk are up 4,600%.
In the interview, Cook said that Apple is ready to use its cash reserves to increase memory supply, but that it would not use capital and expertise to build its own factories. “We can’t do everything. We know what we’re good at,” he said.
Source: www.noticiasaominuto.com.br
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