US imposes a 10% tariff on products imported from China, which might be bad news for Apple

If you’ve been paying attention to international news, you are probably sick of hearing the word “tariff”. Unfortunately, you’ll be hearing it even more – President Trump’s 10% tariffs on all products imported from China went into effect on Tuesday.

That’s bad news for Apple, which manufactures most of its iPhones, iPads, Macs and other products in the country. It’s not yet clear how this will impact the prices of Apple devices.

Apple has moved part of its production to India and now even makes iPhone Pros there (previously, only non-Pro models were made in India). And it is now doing early manufacturing work in India in preparation for the iPhone 17 series. Apple’s efforts were helped along as India removed import fees on key components for smartphones.

That’s all well and good, but Apple’s plans were to move 25% of its production to India by the end of this year – that still means that the majority of Apple devices made are now subject to a 10% tariff all of a sudden.

Apple MixC Hefei, the company’s first store in China’s Anhui province

Apple could take a cut on its profit margin and keep prices the same despite the tariff or it could increase the prices of its products to make up for the extra cost of bringing iPhones and other products to the US. Or it could do something in between. It might be a while before the new prices take effect, anyway, as Apple certainly already has stock in the US – the tariff only applies to things imported from Tuesday onward.

The good news for Apple fans is that Q1 is a bit of a dead quarter for Apple – Q4 when the new iPhones launch and cause a big buying spree, then things quiet down. It’s difficult to predict what might happen until the iPhone 17 series arrives, the whole tariff thing might be a thing of the past. Or it might get worse. We will have a better idea of which it is in a few months.

PS. Apple might have other things to worry about too as China responds to the US tariffs.

Via