Apple staring down $2 billion in total tariff costs in total before end of September
Apple's bill for Trump's tariffs in the third quarter was a little less than first expected, but Tim Cook has cautioned that it will be considerably more in the next quarter, totaling about $2 billion across just two quarters.
Trump's tariffs are increasingly costing Apple more per quarter
Back in March 2025 and Apple's regular earnings report, CEO Tim Cook took the unusual step of looking ahead to the next quarter. It was because of the then impending impact of Trump's tariffs, and Cook said to expect that the cost to Apple would be $900 million.
That figure was less than expected and appeared to show that Apple had successfully reshaped its supply and delivery lines to mitigate against the worst of the tariffs. Now during its latest earnings call, Cook reported that the actual impact of tariffs was approximately $800 million.
He said that the majority of the tariffs Apple paid were in connection with Trump's ones against China, "that hit early in the year." Cook stressed that the majority of iPhones sold in the US now come from India, while most Macs, iPadd, and Apple Watches are made in Vietnam.
Rerouting production and distribution obviously incurred costs. But moving it to countries with the lowest tariffs meant the total come in at $100 million less than expected. However, Cook said that the next quarter should be significantly higher.
Tariff costs will rise in the next quarter
"For the September quarter, assuming the current global tariff rates, policies, and applications do not change for the balance of the quarter and no new tariffs are added," he said, "we estimate the impact to add about $1.1 billion to our costs."
There were many caveats to the prediction. Cook also stressed, though, that the "estimate should not be used to make projections for future quarters, as there are many factors that could change, including tariff rates."
Those potential changes include the continuing Trump negotiations with other countries. For instance, the most recent one that will see Apple paying eight times as much to import devices from India than it did before.
Apple is also awaiting the results of a US probe into semiconductor usage in the States. While that probe is claimed to be investigating whether there are any issues that warrant raising tariffs, the White House has pre-judged the result and confirmed that there will be a tariff.
The first fiscal quarter of 2026 is the 2025 holiday sales season -- which is also Apple's biggest quarter of the year. No predictions have been made for that quarter.
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Comments
seriously there product value is mostly in California produced IP anyway they don’t even need to cross the border with that.
How much did tax payers pay for his golf trip to Scotland...$10 million.
The way he played MAGA sheep with the Epstein file...priceless.
He predicted $1.2 billion for the next quarter, because the SEC makes this kind of thing a legal requirement to report. Cook is more often right than Trump is.