Analysts are still trying to calculate the impact of tariffs on the US prices of electronics with iPhones typically being used as an example. Yesterday, WSJ calculated that the Bill of Materials for a 256GB iPhone 16 Pro can go up by $300. Now UBS has a report that shows the worst-case scenario – the price increase for a 1TB iPhone 16 Pro Max at retail.
Right now, that 1TB model costs $1,600. Earlier estimates claimed that the price will go up to $2,300 – those estimates suggested increases of around 40% for all Apple products made in China.
However, UBS’s report calculates that a 1TB iPhone 16 Pro Max manufactured in China can be sold for $2,062 – a 29% increase over the current price. This calculation assumes that the tariff for China stays at the current 54%. However, President Trump has threatened tariffs as high as 104% as a response to China’s retaliatory tariffs.
Apple also manufactures iPhones in India, which would be subject to a 26% tariff if imported into the US. This means that a $1,000 iPhone 16 Pro (128GB) would instead cost $1,120, a 12% increase. Keep in mind that tariffs aren’t applied to the retail price but rather to the price paid by Apple to its manufacturing partners (this is why it would be a 12% increase rather than 26%).
The current prices of iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max
Vietnam – where Apple manufactures the Watch Ultra 2 – is subject to a 46% tariff and the current $800 price could go up by 19% to $950. All of this is assuming that Apple passes on the cost increase attributed to tariffs to consumers instead of taking a hit to its profit margin like it did earlier when Trump introduced a 10% tariff on China. It’s not clear which path Apple will take once its stockpiled inventory runs out.
There are other costs that the UBS report considers – AI servers built in Taiwan would be subject to a 27% price increase. Now, consumers don’t buy AI servers directly, but those are crucial to Apple’s push for AI on iPhones, Macs and its other product lines.
