Cook told The Wall Street Journal that, "unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," stating that the company has faced rising costs on memory and storage chips used in its products.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said higher prices were now “unavoidable” across its range of gadgets, claiming they would remain elevated until costs return to “reasonable levels”.

“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said, adding that Apple has been trying to absorb some of the impact to protect customers.