How much will the price increase if iPhones made in China are moved to the US?

 

How much will the price increase if iPhones made in China are moved to the US?

A video created with artificial intelligence or AI is currently going viral on social media, showing exhausted American workers working in an iPhone factory, in a scene that looks at the world after President Trump’s tariffs.

According to a report in the British newspaper Guardian, iPhone maker Apple is one of the biggest victims of the US President’s order to reorganize global trade because its products are manufactured in China.

Fraser Johnson, a professor at the Ivey Business School in Canada and an expert on Apple’s supply chain, says that “the iPhone is a critical component of the global supply chain.”

More than 1,000 components are brought together from around the world to make an iPhone, and almost all of them are shipped to China. Apple keeps its production details secret, but analysts estimate that about 90 percent of its iPhones are assembled in China.

The California-based company has been in deep trouble since President Trump imposed a 125 percent tax on goods imported from China.

It also became clear on Thursday that it would be subject to a separate 20 percent border tax linked to fentanyl, bringing the total tax burden to 145 percent. Apple would have to pay a hefty fee on any iPhone brought into the United States, which could significantly increase the price of the iPhone.

In one example of a potential price increase, analysts at investment bank UBS warned that the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max with 256GB of storage could rise from $1,200 to $2,150. This is an increase of 79%, based on a total tariff of 145%. Dan Ives, an analyst at the US financial firm Wedbush Securities, has called the tariffs on products made in China a “level 5 pricing storm for American consumers”.

He warned that the cost of moving iPhone production entirely to Apple’s home country, the United States, would be unaffordable for the company and its customers.

“It would no longer be possible to market a $1,000 iPhone to American consumers,” Ives wrote in a note to investors this week.

“The reality is that it would take Apple three years and $30 billion to move 10 percent of its supply chain from Asia to the United States, with significant disruption in the process,” he said.

He added that if the phones were to be made entirely in the United States, the price would more than triple. “If American consumers want to buy a $3,500 iPhone, we should be making them in New Jersey or Texas or some other state.”