iPhone 17 Value Hike Issues Warmth Again Up As New Tariffs Loom

Apple on Thursday reported $94 billion in revenue for the June 2025 quarter, a ten% improve over final yr. The iPhone, the Mac, and Apple’s providers all rose considerably in the course of the interval. Apple additionally confirmed it paid $800 million in tariffs, or $100 million decrease than its steerage in Might. The iPhone maker expects that tax to balloon to $1.1 billion for the September quarter, when the iPhone 17 collection and the brand new Apple Watch Sequence 11 fashions launch.

Individually, President Trump issued an govt order on Thursday imposing tariffs from 10% to 41% on dozens of nations. Taiwan, the place Apple’s key iPhone chip provider TSMC operates, is topic to a 20% tariff, pending negotiations. There’s additionally the specter of particular chip tariffs, as semiconductors are at the moment below a U.S. nationwide safety probe below Part 232 of the Commerce Growth Act of 1962.

All these developments have occurred simply over a month forward of the iPhone 17 launch in September, prompting renewed worries that costs is perhaps on the rise for the iPhone 17 collection.

Apple has saved iPhone costs largely unchanged up to now few years, regardless of the varied difficulties it has needed to cope with. The COVID pandemic adopted by a interval of excessive inflation impacted Apple’s manufacturing and delivery prices, however Apple did not implement important worth hikes. The iPhone 14 collection noticed a localized worth improve in Europe, as Apple adjusted costs to account for a stronger greenback. These hikes have been reverted for the iPhone 15 collection within the area.

Apple additionally stopped promoting the 128GB mannequin when it launched the iPhone 15 Professional Max, so the most affordable iPhone 15 Professional Max was the 256GB possibility, which value $1,299, or the identical worth because the 256GB iPhone 14 Professional Max and the 256GB iPhone 16 Professional Max that adopted it. Additionally, Apple changed the iPhone mini with the iPhone Plus beginning with the iPhone 16 collection. This eradicated the cheaper $699 iPhone mini possibility from Apple’s lineup.

It is exceptional that Apple was in a position to preserve the identical iPhone pricing construction for all these years, particularly within the U.S. That is why loyal iPhone consumers have come to anticipate Apple to maintain iPhone costs unchanged from yr to yr. Tariffs are a distinct matter, nonetheless. They may influence the iPhone 17 worth considerably. Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner mentioned throughout Apple’s Q2 earnings name in Might that “the overwhelming majority of our merchandise, together with iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, and Imaginative and prescient Professional, are at the moment not topic to the worldwide reciprocal tariffs that have been introduced in April.” The CEO additionally acknowledged Apple’s Part 232 investigation into semiconductors.

Trump has threatened Apple with 25% tariffs a few instances since April, sad that the iPhone maker did not present indicators it is keen to contemplate manufacturing the iPhone at residence. Earlier than that, Apple shifted U.S.-bound iPhone manufacturing to India to keep away from the upper tariffs for China. Trump wasn’t proud of that resolution.

After the earnings name in Might, I used ChatGPT to find out what sort of price hike would apply to the iPhone for Apple to make up that $900 million tariff loss. In my situation, Apple would use the iPhone to scale back the influence of tariffs although the telephone wasn’t taxed further below Trump’s new tariffs. The AI supplied me a worth hike below $20 in a situation the place Apple raised iPhone costs worldwide to recoup that $900 million hit. A second situation concerned Apple solely rising iPhone costs within the U.S. to make up for the tariffs. On this case, all iPhones would value $50 greater than the present costs.

I mentioned on the time that Apple wouldn’t improve iPhone 16 costs mid-cycle. The price hikes could apply to the iPhone 17 series, relying on how tariffs apply to the iPhone. Quick-forward to Apple’s late July earnings report for the June quarter, and we’ve got a brand new tariff steerage for the subsequent interval. Apple expects an identical hit, however $1.1 billion is greater than the earlier $900 million steerage. It is nonetheless some huge cash that Apple must pay in tariffs, and that is earlier than we all know whether or not the iPhone must face the 25% tariff that Trump has threatened.

We have seen studies about imminent iPhone 17 worth hikes all yr lengthy. Extra lately, we discovered that Apple has been pressuring suppliers of key iPhone parts to decrease half costs. The transfer will assist Apple scale back the price of tariffs and forestall important worth hikes. Earlier studies mentioned Apple was already contemplating a worth improve for the brand new collection, nevertheless it did not need consumers to affiliate the hike with Trump’s tariffs.

Earlier this week, Jefferies analyst Edison Lee predicted that Apple would increase iPhone 17 prices this year, however supplied a extra promising image than anticipated. The bottom iPhone 17 would nonetheless begin at $799, identical to its predecessor. The iPhone 17 Air, 17 Professional, and 17 Professional Max would all value $50 greater than their predecessors. The iPhone 17 Air is predicted to interchange the Plus mannequin this yr. The expectation is that the ultra-thin iPhone will value at the very least $899, which is what you’d pay for a brand new iPhone 16 Plus proper now.