The real hit for Apple from tariffs could start in this quarter, to the tune of perhaps $900 million, executives warn Wall Street.Credit…Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
The worst is yet to come
Wall Street had been anxiously awaiting the latest quarterly results from Amazon and Apple to see how badly the companies — of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech giants, perhaps the most vulnerable to President Trump’s trade war — would get hit by tariffs.
The answer: not too badly. But upcoming quarters may be messier, showing that not even hugely powerful corporations are immune to Trump’s assault on global commerce.
The highlights:
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Apple exceeded analyst expectations in the most recent quarter, with $24.78 billion in profit and $95.36 billion in sales.
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Amazon squeaked past Wall Street forecasts, with $18.4 billion in operating income and $155.7 billion in revenue.
Despite steadily climbing worries about tariffs in the just-finished quarter, Tim Cook, Apple’s C.E.O., said the company hadn’t seen any sign of customers pulling forward their purchases of iPhones in case levies forced the company to raise prices. That wasn’t quite the case at Amazon, with Andy Jassy, the company’s C.E.O., saying that there was “heightened buying” of certain products.
The future looks grimmer. Cook warned that despite exemptions from tariffs on Chinese-made iPhones, won after his personal lobbying of Trump, his company may face $900 million in costs in the current quarter because of import duties. That’s assuming no new fees enter the picture. (Fun fact: The word “tariff” came up 27 times during Apple’s earnings call with analysts.)
Jassy acknowledged uncertainty, telling analysts, “Obviously, none of us know exactly where tariffs will settle down or when.” (Tariff word count from the call: 17.)
Other operations are facing pressure. Apple’s services division has often outperformed device sales. But a federal judge recently ordered the company to stop collecting commissions from some app sales, a decision Apple is appealing. And the company could lose some of the $20 billion in annual payments that Google gives it to be the default search engine on the Safari browser if the Justice Department persuades a federal judge to impose stiff antitrust penalties on the search giant.
