Apple and Cook get a boost – and breather – from iPhone sales

DID tariffs help Apple to a blowout quarter? That was one theory that emerged as the company disclosed a surprising surge in iPhone sales in the April-June quarter, up 14 per cent compared with the period a year earlier, handily beating estimates. Consumers, it was said, were rushing out to stores in fear that Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” trade levies would drastically increase the cost of an upgrade.

It certainly makes some logical sense; though the data shows consumers’ fears soon subsided. According to Placer.ai, which uses mobile location data to monitor foot traffic, elevated sales in the immediate days after Trump’s address rapidly petered out – visitors to US Apple stores were up just 0.93 per cent for the entire fiscal quarter compared to a year earlier. Meanwhile, visits to Apple’s website from US consumers were down 3 per cent, according to data from Similarweb.

On a call with investors to discuss the results, chief executive officer Tim Cook acknowledged that tariff chatter did create unusual buying patterns in April, mostly around sales in the US of the iPhone and Mac computers.