Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has threatened to impose trade duties on Apple equipment imported from China for several years. What for? For the company to move production to the United States and increase the number of jobs in the country.
Of course, Apple was not happy with this prospect. First, moving production from China to the United States is very difficult and expensive. Secondly, the duty of 15-20% on imported goods will affect the final price of the device – here we, the buyers, suffer.
The duties became known in August this year, then they were postponed until December 15, and today Bloomberg has shared information that Trump has signed a trade agreement with China, under which Apple can continue to import equipment without paying additional taxes. It was not for nothing that Tim Cook personally asked for the abolition of the trade duty.
How would this affect the price of the devices?
Simple math: iPhone costs about $ 1000 + 15% trade duty – and we get about $ 1150 for a 64GB firmware. Russians cannot be surprised at such a price, but still.
If we move the production of devices to the United States, their retail value will increase by 20-35%: $ 1000 for the base iPhone 11 Pro will turn into $ 1200-1350. Also, Tim Cook stated in an interview that there are much more qualified specialists in China:
If in the USA we hold a meeting of engineers with the qualifications we need, I’m not sure there will be enough of them to fill the room. At the same time, in China, we will fill several soccer fields with them.
Here’s some more interesting information: if Apple had covered the cost of tariffs and did not increase the cost of devices, then the company’s profits would have decreased by 4-5%. And if the price increased, the demand for devices could fall by 6-8%.
Trump gave Apple an early Christmas present. If the tax were introduced, it would be a major blow to Apple and could seriously impact supply chain and demand during the holiday season.
As for duties on Apple Watch, AirPods, iMac and HomePod components, they have not been canceled, but the company expects that this may happen in the future.
