• Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has unpacked the potential impact that Trump’s tariff war with China could have on the company.
• He shared the insight during Apple’s Q2 2025 results.
• The tariffs are estimated to cost Apple as much as $900 million down the line.

Apple has shared its quarterly results for Q2 2025, and in usual fashion, the Cupertino-based company is sitting pretty. This as it reported a quarterly revenue of $95.4 billion, which is up 5 percent year-on-year.

While Apple posting good quarterly results is nothing new, one element that did interest us, was the impact that the Trump administration’s ongoing tariff war with China is having on the company.

Here, CEO Tim Cook, was happy to share some insight, noting that the tariff war may end up costing the company close to $1 billion. This may not seem like a significant figure given its $95.4 billion in revenue, but if that additional cost is pushed onto the consumer when buying new Apple hardware, it is of concern.

“Assuming the current global tariff rates, policies and applications do not change for the balance of the quarter and no new tariffs are added, we estimate the impact to add $900 million to our costs,” explained Cook to investors during the earnings call.

“This estimate should not be used to make projections for future quarters, as there are certain unique factors that benefit the June quarter,” he added via transcribed audio from The Verge.

During the Q&A session for the call, Cook went into more detail in terms of what the tariff war will mean for products that the company ships, with the devices coming into the US being different to those in other parts of the globe.

“For the June quarter, we do expect the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin, and Vietnam to be the country of origin for almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products also sold in the US. China would continue to be the country or original for the vast majority of total product sales outside the US,” he confirmed.

For South African Apple fans then, we should see China listed as the country of manufacturer, which can be seen inside the port of the latest iPhones, for example.

Right now, it appears as if the worst of the tariff increases will not impact Apple’s business, with the different classifications not coming into effect for selected products it ships out of China.

“If you look at the categories of tariffs that are applicable of us today, for the June quarter, most of our tariff exposure relates to the February IEEPA-related tariff at the rate of 20 percent, which applies to imports to the US for products that have China as their country of original,” he noted.

“In addition, for China, there was an additional 125 percent tariff for imports of certain categories of products announced in April. For us, that’s some of our US AppleCare and accessories business, and brings the total rate in China for these products to at least 145 percent,” shared Cook.

In the interim, the additional costs to Apple appear to be easy enough to handle, but after the aforementioned June period, the impact remains to be seen. With the next series of iPhone devices expected in September, it will be interesting to see what they will be priced at, should the Trump tariff war continue in earnest.

“I wouldn’t want to predict the mix of production in the future, but I wanted to give you clarity for the June quarter,” Cook concluded.