Apple is reportedly shipping 600 tons of iPhones to the US by air to avoid President Donald Trump's new tariffs.
Citing supply chain sources, Reuters said Apple's move was "to avoid tariffs". The US government imposed a 26% reciprocal tariff on imports from India but has now delayed it for 90 days along with most other countries on the list.
According to the same source, an Indian government official revealed that Apple even lobbied the Indian aviation ministry to cut the airport clearance time from 30 to 6 hours. The company mainly collects iPhones at Chennai airport, located in Tamil Nadu state. A "green corridor" has been set up to transport iPhones. Since March, there have been six Apple cargo flights with a capacity of more than 100 tons each to the US, with the most recent one taking off just before April 9 - the day the new tariffs came into effect.
Estimated to weigh about 350 grams per iPhone, that's 600 tons, or 1.5 million iPhones.
Apple and the Indian aviation ministry did not comment.
According to research firm Counterpoint Research, Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year worldwide. About a fifth of all iPhones imported to the US come from India, the rest from China.
US Customs data obtained by Reuters shows that the value of Apple shipments directly made by Foxconn from India to the US rose to $770 million in January and $643 million in February. The value typically ranged from $110 million to $331 million in the previous four months, even during the US holiday shopping season.
In India, Apple has asked Foxconn to ramp up iPhone production, Reuters reported. Two other sources at the Foxconn plant in Chennai said they had recently been asked to work overtime on Sundays. The plant is India's largest iPhone manufacturer, producing 20 million iPhones last year, including the latest iPhone 15 and 16 models.
There have been signs that Apple is stockpiling devices for the US ahead of the new tariffs. The Times of India on April 7 quoted a senior Indian official as saying that five flights loaded with iPhones and other Apple products had arrived from India and China "in just the last three days of March."
In the face of Trump's reciprocal tax policy, iPhone prices in the US are expected to increase sharply. Dan Ives, director of technology research at financial services firm Wedbush Securities, told CNN that the price of an iPhone could rise from the current $1,000 to $3,500. Reuters Rosenblatt Securities, a New York-based investment bank, said that iPhones could become 43% more expensive if Apple "passes on the full cost of the new tax to consumers." In the face of these predictions, Americans are said to have rushed to buy iPhones for fear of price increases.