Apple Inc is weighing raising prices for the iPhone lineup coming out later this year, and would avoid blaming the increases on US tariffs on goods from China, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter who it did not name.
Apple would attribute any price increases to new features and design changes, it said.
High-end iPhones, including the Pro and Pro Max models, would be produced in China, even as Apple builds up capacity in Indian factories, the newspaper reported.
Photo: Reuters
Apple is seeking to import most of the iPhones it sells in the US from India by the end of next year, accelerating a shift beyond China to mitigate risks related to tariffs and geopolitical tensions, Bloomberg News has reported.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A few hours after the Journal report, US President Donald Trump said he had spoken to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Cook said during a recent earnings call that Apple could incur costs of about US$900 million this quarter due to tariffs.
Trump didn’t address the potential price increases, instead focusing on how he thinks the company will end up raising its US spending plan beyond the US$500 billion that it had pledged in February. “He’s going to be building a lot of plants in the US for Apple,” Trump said.
Consumers and analysts have been bracing for Apple price increases for more than a month. Bloomberg News reported last month that the company stocked up on inventory to prepare for the tariffs and that price increases were growing more likely.
Shares of Apple climbed 6.2 percent to US$210.79 in New York after the US and China moved to de-escalate their trade dispute, spurring a broader rally across markets.
Separately, Chinese shipments of foreign-branded cellphones, including Apple’s iPhones, dropped by 49.6 percent year-on-year in March, according to data released yesterday by a government-affiliated research company.
Calculations based on data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed that March shipments of foreign-branded phones in China decreased from 3.747 million a year earlier to 1.887 million units.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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