Apple says tariffs will cost it at least $900 million this quarter

During Wednesday’s earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook went into the most detail yet on how the company is responding to the far-reaching US tariffs imposed by President Trump — and the potential impacts on its business. “Assuming the current global tariff rates, policies and applications do not change for the balance of the quarter and no new tariffs are added, we estimate the impact to add $900 million to our costs,” Cook said. “This estimate should not be used to make projections for future quarters, as there are certain unique factors that benefit the June quarter,” he clarified.

Once the call moved on to the Q&A section, Cook expanded quite a bit further, and I’ve transcribed that entire answer below:

For the June quarter, we do expect the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin, and Vietnam to be the country of origin for almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products also sold in the US. China would continue to be the country or original for the vast majority of total product sales outside the US.

If you look at the categories of tariffs that are applicable of us today, for the June quarter, most of our tariff exposure relates to the February IEEPA-related tariff at the rate of 20 percent, which applies to imports to the US for products that have China as their country of original. In addition, for China, there was an additional 125 percent tariff for imports of certain categories of products announced in April. For us, that’s some of our US AppleCare and accessories business, and brings the total rate in China for these products to at least 145 percent.

Also, for transparency and clarity, the vast majority of our products including iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro are currently not subject to the global reciprocal tariffs that were announced in April, as the Commerce Department has initiated a Section 232 investigation into imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and downstream products that contain semiconductors. For the June quarter, as I talked about in my opening comments, we estimate the impact — assuming that the current global tariff rates, policies, and applications don’t change for the balance of the quarter — to be $900 million to our costs. I wouldn’t want to predict the mix of production in the future, but I wanted to give you clarity for the June quarter.

So there you have it. It sounds as though Apple believes tariff costs might rise once those “unique factors” at play in the June quarter no longer apply, but the company isn’t yet confirming as much. “For our part, we will manage the company the way we always have, with thoughtful and deliberate decisions,” Cook said.