A “wide range” of Apple Inc products, including the Apple Watch, would be affected by proposed US tariffs on Chinese goods, the company told US trade officials, without mentioning any potential effects on its cash cow, the iPhone family.
Apple does not disclose specific revenues for most of the affected products, but the Apple Watch could be the biggest seller.
It brought in about US$6.1 billion in revenue last year, according to an estimate from analyst firm Bernstein, a small portion of Apple’s US$229 billion in overall sales.
AirPods headphones, some of Apple’s Beats headphones and its new HomePod smartspeaker also face levies as part of proposed 10 percent tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese goods, an unsigned letter submitted by the company on Wednesday to US officials as part of a public comment period said.
“Our concern with these tariffs is that the US will be hardest hit, and that will result in lower US growth and competitiveness and higher prices for US consumers,” Apple said in the letter.
The letter did not mention the iPhone, which accounted for about two-thirds of its US$229 billion in revenue in its most recent fiscal year.
However, Apple said that its MacMini, a low-priced computer that comes without a keyboard or mouse, would be affected.
Many Apple accessories, such as mice, keyboards, chargers, and even leather covers for iPhones and iPads would face tariffs, Apple said.
Computer parts for its US operations would be hit by the tariffs, the company said, adding that “main logic boards with microprocessing units” could face levies, along with equipment used for research and development.
On Apple’s most recent earnings call in July, chief executive Tim Cook said that the company could face tariffs “related to data centers.”
In the letter, Apple argued that the way that US trade officials calculate the US trade balance — attributing the entire value of a product to a country such as China, in which final assembly happens — fails to reflect the true value that Apple generates in the US.
“It is difficult to see how tariffs that hurt US companies and US consumers will advance the government’s objectives with respect to China’s technology policies,” Apple said in its letter.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day