Analysts predict iPhone price hikes as tariffs impact production costs
Recent developments surrounding the tariff imposed on imports by the Trump administration have led to concern among consumers, who are worried that the prices of several products could shoot up like crazy. Apple is also expected to be hit by the financial implications.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the pre-tariff total cost for manufacturing an iPhone 16 Pro with 256GB of storage is about $549.73, and $580 when factoring in testing and assembly expenses. However, this figure does not take into consideration the costs related to research, development, marketing, and other operational expenses.
With the new tariff in place, Apple's production cost for the same iPhone model is estimated to jump to approximately $847. This substantial expense could impact the company’s pricing strategy.
The Wall Street Journal highlights that, despite these challenges, Apple still maintains a "healthy profit margin" even when additional costs are considered. While the company has not officially commented on how it plans to address the repercussions of these tariffs, industry analysts suggest it is unlikely that Apple will absorb the entire cost. Many people are speculating that the 54% import tariff on goods from China could force Apple to increase the prices of its products as the company adjusts to the new financial landscape. Apple is also reportedly considering moving a large chunk of the manufacturing to other countries, to reduce the tax burden.
Apple sells the 256GB variant of the iPhone 16 Pro Max at a retail price of $1,199, which is already considered to be pretty expensive. A potential increase in the price would put the device out of reach for many, and could lead to fans panic-buying an iPhone sooner than later.
Nintendo has delayed pre-orders for the Switch 2 in the U.S. as it analyzes the tariff situation.
Source: 9to5Mac
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well my lost smart phone will be the current one iPhone 13..will stay with it till Apple no longer updates it…then a flip phone it is because I am at that point where staring at a phone screen is waist of my time and because i am getting old these days and my desire to use social media apps is diminished. I’ve completely deleted all my social apps, except Single chat app.
Looks like you have a serious fixation with cell phones. Doubt you’ll get over that.
I use a 7 year old flip phone. I shut it off when I’m not using it. When forced I give a fake number. Telling people, you want to contact me, use the postal service, or email, I’ll answer when I answer it.
People think they have a right to demand immediate access to me. Then, why use a phone, no one answers them anyway. Rarely do people call back. Am I right or am I right?
I don’t want to transact my life on a “thing” that can easily be stolen, lost, disabled etc.
What I find really fucking annoying is that every clown wants me to look at “their pics”: wanna see my dog? My cat? My xmas tree? My niece’s graduation? My cousins wedding.
Serious people, your life means little or nothing to others.
People have lost their fucking minds with phones. I save thousands not buying the latest toy.
That was fun huh?
People will think twice now. No more wasting earth’s resources by purchasing the same overpriced Chinese phone year after year.
Who in their right mind would waste a $1k for a phone… a phone! Soon to be $1.5 k.
If only I could create a vaccine for stupidity.
I thought it was like $1.2k-1.8k for top version. I watched a few videos where they disassembled new iPhones and counted the cost of components (around $250). And it cost Apple $500 to build, market and sell. $1000 profit margin (estimated).
I recently bought a phone for 600-700 USD. My old phone costed around 200 USD in 2022. I wanted to get something that felt like an improvement, but not increasing the price a lot.
My old phone was Xiaomi Redmi 10C with its most notable components being Snapdragon 680 CPU and UFS 2.2 storage. So I wanted something a little bit better, maybe Snapdragon 800-something and maybe UFS 3.1 storage at least and I quickly found out that in the past 3 years, either due to inflation or some other reason, the phones that were currently on sale for 400 USD and I expected them to be significant improvements over my phone, were in fact the same, at least from my perspective, they only had better display and camera, but the performance, the thing I care about the most was the same, if not worse, because when you install a more demanding display, it draws more power and reduces performance and battery life even more.
So I realized I can’t get a phone that’s an improvement to mine for that price and resolved that I had to spend a little more money on it. And for around 600-700 USD, I got Realme 14 Pro Plus. It was either that or Xiaomi 14T, but I chose the Realme because it had a 6000 mAh Si/Ca battery and I wanted to try that technology over the Li/Po 5000 mAh of the 14T.
So what I’m trying to say is that prices have increased regardless of brand. I don’t buy flagships and am not a fan of cliche popular brands like Samsung, Apple or Google, I prefer Chinese brands that are less popular and offer cheaper devices with more powerful hardware at the expense that the ROM on the phone will have some bundled apps and some apps will have ads in them, which I can disable on my own and get a more powerful device for cheaper and not be a slave of stupid brands that mediocre and shallow people fall for.
One would think that if you buy some Chinese phone from an unknown brand, it will be much cheaper, but in reality it’s no longer the case – even those are now more expensive due to inflation, recession and whatnot. And overhyped and overrated brands like Apple, Samsung, Google have even more inflated and ridiculous prices – Samsung phones for example that are between budget and midrange have prices like they are upper midrange and flagship. And budget Samsung phones that should cost 80 USD cost 180 USD, which is crazy. I won’t even waste my time discussing Google’s overpriced and underpowered phones or Apple’s overpriced phones that come with so many limitations that paying for the optimization and performance they offer still doesn’t feel justified when it’s so difficult to install pirated and cracked apps on them and can’t use the devices as the user sees fit.