Apple’s sweeping price hikes on MacBooks and iPads, which wiped out US$260 billion of its market cap overnight, reflect a “seismic shock” the tech industry faces from rising memory and storage costs, analysts say, warning that the iPhone could be next.

The US tech giant increased prices for Macs, iPads, Vision Pro and home devices globally on Thursday, with some models now costing 20 per cent more. Price tags for the iPhone and Apple Watch currently remain unchanged.

“The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge,” Apple said in a statement, pointing out that “the rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage”.

“We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” the Cupertino, California-based company said.

Apple added that it had “reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products”, a statement the industry interpreted as a hint of more increases down the road.

The company’s shares fell 6.15 per cent to close at US$275.15 on Thursday, marking their biggest drop in over a year.