The ongoing trade dispute between Washington and China could impact the iPhone as well. The possibility that iPhones may get expensive due to tariffs imposed by the United States has been raised before. While that hasn’t happened as yet, Apple is reportedly considering its options, and they include moving production outside China.
It wouldn’t be the only U.S. company moving production of its devices outside China to avoid potential tariffs. GoPro has announced that it’s going to shift production of its U.S.-bound action cameras outside China as a pre-emptive measure against tariffs.
Apple does work with some suppliers outside China. Taiwan-based Wistron has built an assembly line in Bengaluru, India where iPhone SE models were supposed to be made. Foxconn also set up a factory in Brazil but that didn’t achieve the intended results as even locally produced models were quite expensive in the country compared to the U.S.
Bloomberg reports that Apple is willing to not upset the supply chain if the U.S. decides to impose a 10 percent tariff on smartphones imported into the country from China. It may only move production outside China if the tariff reaches 25 percent or more. It may go the GoPro way and just move production to another country for the iPhones that are meant for the U.S. market.