Apple shares drop 4.8% after mid-cycle price hikes

Apple shares – Apple’s rare mid-cycle hardware price increases sent its shares down about 4.8% in morning trading on June 25, but early Wall Street reactions stayed mostly upbeat. Analysts kept their ratings and price targets unchanged, arguing the higher prices should offse

Apple’s morning trading slump on June 25 looked sudden enough for investors to feel it, with shares down about 4.8% after the company announced rare mid-cycle hardware price increases. For a market that usually treats Apple as predictable, the timing carried weight.

The move landed right after Micron’s blockbuster earnings report. a catalyst that reinforced Wall Street’s belief that AI-driven demand will keep DRAM and NAND prices elevated. In the minutes that followed the announcement. Apple slid into the role of one of the biggest losers among megacap technology stocks—despite the fact that many analysts didn’t reach for the panic button.

Instead, the first reactions published after Apple’s June 25 price hike shared a common theme: higher prices may be painful, but they’re also positioned as a tool to manage memory costs that have become harder for Apple to absorb.

Evercore ISI’s Amit Daryanani kept an Outperform rating and a $365 price target following the announcement. He called Apple’s action unusual, saying Apple typically waits for a new hardware cycle before adjusting prices. Daryanani pointed to DRAM and NAND prices rising to multiples of where they stood a year ago. and noted that Apple’s long-term memory supply agreements expired during the quarter—leaving the company more exposed to spot-market pricing. Evercore expects the higher costs to have outpaced Apple’s ability to absorb them. and believes the new pricing should help protect Apple’s gross margins. The firm also warned that the increases could create some demand friction for Macs and iPads.

Evercore added another thread to the timing: it said Apple left iPhone prices unchanged, making the expected September iPhone launch the next major pricing event.

Wedbush arrived at a similar destination from a different angle. Analyst Dan Ives maintained an Outperform rating and a $400 price target after the price increases. Ives argued that soaring memory and storage costs have made higher Apple hardware prices unavoidable, given Apple’s purchasing scale. Wedbush also suggested Apple can raise prices without materially increasing customer churn, pointing to the continued buying of higher-end products. The firm, too, tied strategy to the broader chip picture, highlighting Apple’s recently announced semiconductor partnership with Intel. Ives said the partnership supports efforts to diversify chip production and expand manufacturing in the United States. and he expects it will help Apple secure additional chip capacity as AI infrastructure demand rises for memory and semiconductors.

What connected the early takes wasn’t that the price hikes were easy on consumers—it was that the cost pressure looked bigger than any immediate demand risk. The selloff did not translate into rating changes. because analysts largely framed Apple’s decision as a response to component inflation rather than a bet on demand.

In practice. both firms ended up emphasizing the same point: Apple raised prices amid extraordinary memory cost inflation. and both Evercore ISI and Wedbush kept their ratings and price targets unchanged. Investors may have to wait for the next quarter or two to see whether the higher prices bring the hoped-for margin stability—or trigger the kind of demand friction some analysts are already flagging.

Apple AAPL stock drop price hikes DRAM NAND memory costs AI demand Evercore ISI Amit Daryanani Wedbush Dan Ives Intel semiconductor partnership iPhone pricing Macs and iPads