Apple won't be able to avoid price hikes for long

That new iPhone will likely cost more soon. How much more, and how obvious Apple makes the price hike, are the real questions.

- Dan Gallagher

Apple's latest earnings report shows the company is so far choosing to eat the additional costs imposed by tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. But that is unlikely to last forever, especially given Apple's well-earned reputation on Wall Street for protecting its profit margins.

"Looking ahead, our base case is for Apple to raise prices, which should help offset the tariff impact to an extent," Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri wrote in a note following Apple's fiscal second-quarter results last week.

The tariff impact so far is actually pretty slight. In Apple's earnings call Thursday, Chief Executive Tim Cook said the company expects about $900 million in additional costs from tariffs for the fiscal third quarter that ends in June. That would add less than 2% to what Wall Street was projecting for Apple's cost of sales.