Apple revealed the new MacBooks and increased their starting price

Apple introduced new versions of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks, equipping them with new M5 chips. At the same time, the company increased their prices compared to the previous generation. This happened amid memory shortages and after a weak holiday season for the Mac segment, Bloomberg reported.

Apple unveiled its new line of Mac computers on March 3.

MacBook Air received the M5 processor and increased in price by $100: the base 13-inch model now costs $1099. At the same time, the company for the first time doubled the minimum storage capacity to 512 GB, mitigating the effect of the price increase, Bloomberg notes.

The MacBook Pro lineup has moved to the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The 14-inch model with the M5 Pro has gone up $200 to $2199, while the version with the higher-performance M5 Max now starts at $3599, $400 more expensive than the previous model. The regular MacBook Pro with the M5 chip, introduced in October, has also gone up in price, from $1599 to $1699. Apple has also increased storage capacity in these computers: the minimum MacBook Pro configuration now includes 1TB of storage, while models with the M5 Max come standard with 2TB.

The company says the MacBook Pro and Air lines are four times faster than their predecessors in AI-related tasks, and the new MacBook Pro line is 30 percent faster overall than its predecessor, Bloomberg writes.

Apple also released a new version of the Studio Display and, for the first time, the Display XDR. The new MacBooks and screens are available for pre-order now and will go on sale March 11.

Apple shares were volatile on March 3: at the moment they were falling by 1.7%, but also temporarily went into a small plus. At the time of publication of this text, the stock was losing 1.5% of its value.

Apple's stock is now 4% cheaper than it was at the start of 2026. But most analysts are advising them to buy: the stock has 33 Buy and Overweight ratings versus 17 Hold and two Sell, MarketWatch shows.

The MacBook Air has been updated a year after the M4 chip version was released, Bloomberg notes. The MacBook Pro lineup hasn't received a major update since late 2024. A day earlier, on March 2, Apple unveiled the budget iPhone 17e and an updated iPad Air with the M4 chip, which was offered last year for the base version of the MacBook.

The company is coming off a disappointing holiday season: Mac sales fell 6.7% in the first quarter (ended Dec. 30) to $8.39 billion versus expectations of more than $9 billion, Bloomberg writes. Analysts expect faster chips to help spur device upgrades.

The price increase is partly due to the rising cost of memory. Suppliers are prioritizing more marginal data centers for artificial intelligence, which limits supply for consumer electronics, Bloomberg recalls. Apple's rival Samsung previously announced price increases for its flagship S26 smartphones, Reuters reported.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor