That'll take the spring out of your step: Apple warns of iPhone shortages, revenue miss due to coronavirus Apple said the COVID-19 epidemic in China has disrupted iPhone production to the point that it will lead to global shortages of the handset – and likely miss already widened revenue forecasts it set in January. Although Cupertino's contract manufacturers' fabs are located outside of Wuhan – the city where the bio nasty is …
Well yes, it will, because the virus is actually affecting China, whereas the tariffs are being paid by US companies and - by direct consequence - US citizens.
The only part of Trump's tariffs that have any impact on China is where US companies order less stuff, or no more at all following the famous forbidden list that erased 30% off the revenue of a company that needed parts from China.
The Chinese company is just suffering a small loss of revenue, the US company is hit for a third of its activity. Who's suffering the most ?
There has been chatter that the COVID-19 would cause some economic hurt because of the need for quarantines and workers being out sick or worse. I would expect many companies to report off numbers for the next couple of quarterly cycles as the virus hits other areas and after it burns out things get back to normal.
... in its usual way of generating profits. After all, although in technical terms it is now the world's largest corporation, in fundamental terms the company is way, way, waaay down the list.
Why is this, one might ask? Well, despite its very small market share Apple reaps an enormous profit from the relatively few devices it does sell. (Read: they're incredibly overpriced.)
And how might COVID be profitable for Apple? The illusion of scarcity it creates stiffens the demand curve, allowing them to raise prices even further on what are already fairly cheap devices with already large price tags.
It'll be interesting to see how this works out for them.
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