Apple reroutes India-made iPhones to the US as buyers flock to stores over price increase concerns

Apple iPhone buyers are flocking to US stores and inquiring if its prices will increase after the Trump administration levied a 34% tariff on goods imported from China and threatened to raise it to 50% if China retaliates, which it did.

Apple Store employees are reporting a visible increase in foot traffic similar to what happens during the holiday season, and say that most of the potential buyers are asking if iPhone prices are set to increase. This has led to a bump in sales compared to the same period in previous years, too.

Unfortunately, they don't have any corporate guidance on what to answer worried customers just yet, before Apple reports earnings on May 1. Apple is now making moves to offset any potential repercussions from the drastic tariff increase, though.

It has stockpiled several months worth of device sales in the US, and is starting to reroute more made-in-India iPhones to the American market, too. These face way lower import tariffs, and Apple will be making about 25 million iPhones in India this year.

If most of them were rerouted to the US market instead of the local one, this could satisfy roughly half of Americans' demand for iPhones. The high tariff on made-in-China products could raise the iPhone's Bill of Materials (BOM), or the cost to assemble it, by about 55%.

An iPhone 16 Pro, for instance, which now costs Apple $550 in BOM, and can be found for $917 on Amazon in Grade A renewed state, could cost it more than $800 to manufacture and import with the newly minted tariffs.

To keep the same profit margin, Apple would have to raise the iPhone 16 Pro price to the tag of a fully loaded 1TB iPhone 16 Pro Max, which may be unpalatable for many buyers in the US.

Shifting iPhone production to the US will take time, though, and won't make it any cheaper, so Apple is evidently trying to move things around and cushion the harshest impact of tariffs on the American consumer any way it can.