Apple is mulling over price increases for its upcoming iPhone 17 lineup, which will be unveiled in the fall, says a report by The Wall Street Journal.
The report’s sources say the company reportedly aims to attribute any potential price hikes on the iPhone 17’s new features and design changes to justify the increased cost to customers, rather than blaming them on President Trump’s tariffs on goods from China.
While China and the U.S. have recently agreed to suspend most tariffs they have imposed during their tade dispute, a 20% tariff on Chinese goods remains in place, which covers smartphones.
The report says its sources says Apple wants to avoid any insinuation that price increases are directly related to tariffs:
The people familiar with the supply chain said Apple would have trouble making up for China tariff costs solely by seeking further savings from its suppliers, meaning a hit to its profit margin was likely unless it could raise prices.
At the same time, company executives are wary of blaming increases on tariffs. When a news report in April said Amazon might show the impact of tariffs to its shoppers, the White House called it a hostile act and Amazon quickly said the idea “was never approved and is not going to happen.”
These circumstances have led Apple to look at what supply-chain insiders described as the least-bad choice: raising prices on the new iPhones to preserve profit and finding reasons other than tariffs to explain the move. It couldn’t be determined what new features Apple may offer to help justify price increases.
Due to fears of ever-rising tariffs due to U.S.-China trade tensions, Apple has flown in extra inventory, while shifting a larger amount of its device production to India. Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this month said the majority of iPhones to be sold in the US during the April-June quarter would be made in India. Unfortunately for Apple, Apple’s high-end Pro and Pro Max models will continue to be assembled in China, as India’s ifrastructure isn’t ready to support mass production of the high-end devices at the same rate as China.
