Apple users are trying to get ahead of prices.
The crowd of Apple stores during the weekend had vibrations of Black Friday, said a retail employee, but buyers were not there for vacation gifts. President Donald Trump is in a tariff battle with China, the main country on which Apple depends for the manufacture of its products.
With a tariff of 104% in force on Chinese imported goods, Apple faces a difficult decision: increasing prices or finding another way to compensate for costs.
With the prices of the iPhone at risk of climbing, customers flock to their local Apple stores to upgrade now rather than later.
“It is not innovation or a broken phone that brought me to the store,” Joseph Donelly, 42, told Business Insider after publishing on online upgrade.
He had planned to keep his iPhone 13 Pro until the iPhone 17 was released, but exchanged it for an iPhone 16 Pro Max on Saturday after the prices were announced. Donelly said it had drawn the line to pay 20% or more additional for “additional improvement” on current or future models.
On Tuesday, in downtown Brooklyn Apple Store, I waited about 15 minutes to talk to a member of the Iphones team because they were all occupied by customers who install their new phones, they said. When I spoke with an employee, she told me that the Tuesday crowd was nothing compared to chaos on weekends.
While we were getting around the iPhone display table, another customer, who asked not to be appointed, told me that he improved “before becoming much more expensive”.
“I just make the cheapest last a few years,” he said while playing with the iPhone 16th of $ 599.
Bi contacted Apple, but the company refused to share data on store traffic or sales.
Before adding Trump of a new bump to China’s pricing rate, analysts had an increase in prices of 40% compared to technological devices. The iPhone 16 Pro Max, for example, would drop from $ 1,599 to a little less than $ 2,300, according to previous BI calculations. The reciprocal price of 104% would push its iPhone model higher than $ 2,300 if Apple decides to let the cost fall for consumers.
While Apple deployed the iPhone 16 and its AI offers in 2024, analysts predicted an upgrade supercycle. This did not happen right away, but fears of the price could – briefly – trigger a boom from iPhone sales whose technology industry has been discussing for almost a year.
Donelly said he was content with his new iPhone 16 Pro Max for the next two years, at least.
“Perhaps if the prices end with the 20th anniversary of the iPhone in 2027, I will probably improve too,” he told Bi.
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