Apple’s Anti-Tariff Tactic: Flying 1.5 Million iPhones From India

Apple has reportedly flown 600 tons of iPhones into the U.S. in an anti-tariff measure.

The effort, which brought up to 1.5 million of Apple’s flagship smartphones into the country, came after the company ceased productions in India to overcome President Donald Trump’s tariffs, Reuters reported Thursday (April 10), citing sources familiar with Apple’s plans.

According to the report, analysts warn that iPhone prices could rocket up in the U.S. due to Apple’s dependence on Chinese imports. China is the company’s chief manufacturing hub, and is facing a 125% tariff rate.

India, meanwhile, has a much lower rate — 26% — which is now on hold after Trump instituted a 90-day tariff pause on all countries aside from China.

Apple “wanted to beat the tariff,” one of the sources told Reuters.

That source said the company had campaigned to get Indian airport authorities to cut the time needed to make it through customs at the Chennai airport in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, from 30 hours down to just six hours.

Apple sells upwards of 220 million iPhones worldwide each year, the report said, citing data from Counterpoint Research showing that 20% of those phone imports to the U.S. are from India, with the remainder coming from China.

The Reuters report suggests that Apple’s plans were in place long before the tariffs, or even before Trump’s election victory, with a senior Indian official saying that the company had spent about eight months arranging its fast-tracked customs clearance.

As noted here earlier in the week — in a previous report on Apple’s plans to use India to offset the tariff costs — the tech giant was among the companies that saw the biggest stock market losses after the new levies were announced.

“The decline in shares of Apple erased $300 billion from the company’s market cap, largely because of the iPhone maker’s overseas production hubs,” PYMNTS wrote.

When Trump announced the pause Thursday, the markets recovered somewhat, with the Dow surging by nearly 2,000 points, bringing temporary relief to many industries and markets, PYMNTS wrote in a separate report Thursday.

“However, companies and economists remain cautious about its long-term implications,” that report added. “The freeze does not eliminate tariffs entirely, leaving uncertainty about future trade policies but also pulling the covers on what companies may do if the temporary freeze is lifted for an appreciable amount of time.