Apple couldn't bear it anymore and started a large-scale price increase that has been rare in recent years. According to news from the United States on the 25th local time, Apple raised the prices of some laptops and tablets in multiple markets around the world on the same day, citing the sharp increase in the cost of memory and storage chips. This price adjustment does not involve Apple mobile phones yet.
In response, an Apple spokesperson said: "The consumer electronics industry is facing unprecedented challenges. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen component prices increase at such an alarming magnitude and speed. To date, we have worked hard to avoid burdening our customers with these rising costs, but now we have reached a point where we have to start raising prices on many products, including the iPad and Mac announced today. "
On the evening of June 25, Apple China’s official website underwent brief background maintenance and completed price updates for all non-mobile phone hardware. The specific prices after adjustment are as follows:
In summary, this price adjustment covers a wide range of products, including all series of Mac computers, all models of iPad, Apple Vision Pro, Apple TV 4K and other products. The price increase range of single products is between 800 yuan and 3,500 yuan, with mainstream models generally increasing by 15%-25%.
The reporter noticed that currently, the prices of related products on e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, Douyin, and Dewu have also been adjusted.
Offline, a Blue Whale reporter called Apple's Jing'an store as a consumer, and the clerk responded on the phone: "We also received the notification at short notice, which was very sudden. The prices of some products had been adjusted last night, and the official flagship stores on the official website and e-commerce platform have also updated their prices online and offline simultaneously."
Second-hand market prices rise simultaneously, scalpers are busy stocking up
As soon as the official price increase news came out, the second-hand market prices also rose simultaneously.
Taking the MacBook Air M5 13-inch as an example, Blue Whale reporters noticed that before the official price adjustment, the quasi-new price of this model in the second-hand market was approximately stable at around 6,000 yuan. After the news of the price adjustment was announced, the price of nearly new phones with the same configuration on Xianyu quickly jumped to 6,999 yuan, with some in excellent condition even priced at 7,500 yuan.
Turning around, the price of the MacBook Air M5 15-inch quasi-new machine has reached as high as 11,428 yuan, a price increase of about 2,000 yuan from the past week.
In the context of Apple's price increase, second-hand merchants who sensed the opportunity for arbitrage began to purchase goods in bulk, waiting for the next round of price jumps.
A scalper told reporters that Apple's new product release rhythm is fixed, and the next generation of Mac and iPad will have to wait for at least half a year. The existing M5 chip models are still the main force in the market. Apple users have high loyalty, especially the productivity attributes of Mac and iPad. Enterprise users, designers, etc. are relatively less price sensitive, so they will have to buy when the price increases. In addition, the demand for AI computing power is still exploding, and there is still a possibility of further increases in the future.
Consumers placed orders before the price increase, but some merchants refused to ship at the original price.
It is worth noting that the official price increase has also caused some transaction disputes in third-party stores. Some consumers placed orders before the price increase but were unilaterally refused to deliver goods by the merchants.
A consumer told Blue Whale reporters that she placed an order for an iPad Air 8 at a store called "Langpai Digital" on the e-commerce platform at 8 a.m. on June 25. At that time, the merchant priced the iPad Air 8 at 4,268 yuan. When placing the order, the page showed that it was in stock and the payment process went smoothly.
However, in the morning of the next day, the merchant suddenly contacted her and said that she could not deliver the goods at the original order price because the purchase cost had increased significantly with the official price adjustment.
When the consumer clicked on the original product link again, he found that the price of the same model had been increased from 4,268 yuan to 6,268 yuan, a full 2,000 yuan increase overnight.
The consumer said this was unacceptable. "I placed the order before the price increase. The order has been established. The current price difference should not be borne by me." She told reporters that after repeated communication with the platform's customer service, she finally received only a 100 yuan compensation coupon as a solution.
In fact, similar situations are not isolated. On social platforms, many netizens reported that their Mac or iPad orders that were locked before the price increase were canceled by merchants for reasons such as "insufficient inventory", and the same product link was immediately re-listed at the post-price increase price after cancellation. Consumers questioned that merchants were taking advantage of the official price increase to maliciously break contracts and pass on the increased purchase costs that should have been borne by themselves to consumers who had already placed orders.
Regarding a similar situation, a reporter from Blue Whale called Apple's official hotline, and the staff responded that if consumers place orders through Apple's official website, such problems will not occur. All orders placed before the price increase takes effect will be executed at the original price, and there will be no requirement to make up for the price difference or cancel the order due to subsequent price adjustments.