Apple has hiked HomePod Mini and iMac prices in some countries

Apple has hiked HomePod Mini and iMac prices in some countries

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Depending on where you live, the HomePod Mini and the iMac may have just gotten more expensive. The Apple Post noted that the company’s small smart speaker went from £89 to £99 in the UK, and outlets like MacRumors and 9to5Mac have reported a similar €99 to €109 jump in other European countries like Austria, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

In the UK, each pre-made iMac configuration also went up in price by £150. In France, iMac prices went up by €100 for the base model and €110 for the other models, though they stayed the same in Germany and Ireland.

It’s hard to find a pattern in the increases. In New Zealand, the HomePod Mini’s price went from NZ$159.00 to NZ$179.00, while it stayed the same in neighboring Australia. Meanwhile, people in the Netherlands have been paying the “increased” €109 price since it became available in the country in March, 2022.

Apple didn’t immediately reply to The Verge’s request for comment on why the price hikes were happening in certain locations. In the US, the HomePod Mini is still $99, the same price it launched at.

It’s relatively rare for already-released Apple hardware to get a price bump; the company will typically raise the price when it introduces a new generation instead, like it’s done with MacBooks and iPhones. (While it announced on stage that the iPhone 14 would have the same starting price as its predecessor, that wasn’t true in the UK and several European countries, many of which are also affected by the HomePod Mini increase.)

While Apple did technically add new software features to its smart speakers this week, giving them the ability to sense temperature and humidity, it’d be hard to argue that justifies raising the price, given that the hardware was already included. If you bought a HomePod Mini the day it launched for €99, you’re getting this feature too via a software update.