Apple’s earnings call was today and as you might imagine, tariffs were a popular subject during the call. On the call, CEO Tim Cook addressed concerns over how President Trump’s tariffs and other trade policies could affect the pricing of Apple’s products.
For now, Apple product prices will remain stable, with Apple eating the increased costs. However, that could change with the blink of an eye, depending on how Trump’s trade policy evolves.
Cook revealed that Apple will incur $900 million in costs from tariffs during the current quarter, although the company will absorb those added costs rather than passing the hikes on to its customers. However, Cook did admit that there could be price hikes in the future.
“Obviously, we’re very engaged on the tariff discussions,” Cook said. “We believe in engagement and will continue to engage. On the pricing piece, we have nothing to announce today. I’ll just say that the operational team has done an incredible job around optimizing the supply chain of the inventory, and we’ll obviously continue to do those things to the degree that we can.”
Apple is working feverishly to diversify its manufacturing base, moving manufacturing out of China, tapping India and Vietnam for production of some of its hardware lines. Unfortunately, Trump may eventually target Apple’s alternate supply chain countries with increased tariffs, as he continues to make noise about Apple bringing production back to the United States.
