During Apple’s tariff-heavy earnings call today, CEO Tim Cook addressed concerns about how trade policy could impact product pricing — but his careful wording may have said more than he intended.
Apple revealed it will incur a $900 million cost from tariffs this quarter. For now, Apple is absorbing that cost rather than passing it on to consumers.
Cook didn’t rule out future price hikes, though.
“Obviously, we’re very engaged on the tariff discussions,” Cook said. “We believe in engagement and will continue to engage. On the pricing piece, we have nothing to announce today. I’ll just say that the operational team has done an incredible job around optimizing the supply chain of the inventory, and we’ll obviously continue to do those things to the degree that we can.”
The company is rapidly diversifying manufacturing out of China, expanding production in India for U.S.-bound products and tapping Vietnam for other hardware lines. Still, tariff exemptions aren’t guaranteed to last—and the White House could eventually target Apple’s alternative supply chain countries if it wants to push the company harder on U.S. manufacturing.
For now, Apple product prices remain stable. That could change quickly, depending on how trade policy evolves.
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