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Ask HN: Are Apple's price hikes a cash grab or preemption of future US tariffs?
- jryan49 8y agoI don't think a 10% tariff would account for the entire increase. It may be part of it though.
- eaandkw 8y agoHonestly I think that Apple will keep increasing the price until it hurts their bottom line. And why wouldn't they want to do that. They are accountable to their shareholders not the consumer.
- cimmanom 8y agoOf course, unless they know exactly where they are on the demand curve, how would they know whether it’s negatively affecting their bottom line?
- eaandkw 8y agoI'm sure they have some smart people working on that and what the people would tolerate. It's kind of like boiling a frog. If the temperature increases too much the frog jumps out. If you do it slowly the frog stays in and eventually dies. On second thought that may not be the best analogy but it's close. As far as the demand curve goes they can just judge things by sales. If the price increase off-sets the loss of sales but increases revenue then they would keep doing it. If not they will stop.
- askafriend 8y agoIt could be because of various increased component/research/development/operational costs, among other things. For reference, here are their margins over the years: https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/gross_profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/gross_profit_margin