By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Let’s dig into this journal report, Tom. They say citing sources Apple is considering raising iPhone prices this fall alongside new features, design changes. As a financial analyst, Tom, you know Apple as well as anybody. You read that report. What do you make of it?
00:22 Tom
Yeah. So going back to that March earnings call, uh, Apple was hesitant to say that it was going to take price. It said it was considering raising prices as a way to mitigate the impact of tariffs. So so I do think that it seems logical to me that the company may take price on the iPhones. The good news all along for Apple has been that it’s a premium brand, it has pricing power. So while not able to offset, uh, you know, 100 plus percent tariff from China if necessary, uh, it can raise prices to to mitigate it. So I do think that there’s some logic or that makes a lot of sense to me that Apple may want to raise prices on the iPhone independent of the tariff situation.
01:52 Speaker A
And and so they do have pricing power time. I guess, how much power do you think? I I would speak just to put some numbers on it. I was speaking this morning to Gene Munster, now with Deepwater Asset Management. I I I asked Munster this question, and his take was, well, he thinks if if a 10% basic tariff does remain in place. If that’s the case, Tom, then he thinks he thinks Cook does raise iPhone prices 5% in the fall. Um, he doesn’t think 5% would dent demand materially, but those numbers, I mean, roughly Tom, do those make sense to you?
03:02 Tom
Yes, so Josh, as you know, when Apple raises price, it may raise the price of the pro, but not the base model. It may raise the price of the pro max. It may raise the price of, you know, getting higher memory. There’s a lot of different levers that Apple can pull when it comes to increasing prices. Um, on a notion of a 10% call permanent tariff, a 5% price hike makes a lot of sense to me, but I do feel like Apple’s benefiting from carriers who are once again heavily subsidizing the purchases to improve their competitive set or where they stand competitively versus their other carriers. So in that regard, maybe you could argue that they could raise prices more than 5%. So so 5% I think is a reasonable number, but I would argue that potentially the full 10% is also possible.