U.S. Smartphone Imports From China Plunge 72% as Apple Expands in India

Shipments of Apple's iPhone and other mobile devices from China to the U.S. plummeted in April, reaching their lowest point since 2011, according to data from China's General Administration of Customs via Bloomberg. This sharp decline highlights the significant impact of U.S. tariffs on the trade of high-value goods between the two countries.

The detailed customs figures, which came out Tuesday, show U.S. imports of smartphones from China nosedived by a staggering 72% last month, amounting to just under $700 million. That's a far steeper decline than the 21% overall drop in Chinese shipments to the U.S., really hammering home how the Trump administration's tariff campaign is shaking up the tech world. With levies having reached as high as 145% on certain Chinese goods, the pressure to reroute electronics production is immense.




This isn't happening in a vacuum, of course. Investors are watching nervously, fearing a full-blown global trade war that could wreak havoc on numerous industries and inevitably lead to consumers paying more. The U.S.-China trade relationship, valued at $690 billion in 2024, is clearly under strain. Tensions remain palpable; just this week, Beijing pointed fingers at the Trump administration, accusing it of sabotaging recent trade discussions in Geneva by targeting Huawei Technologies Co.'s AI chip supply. It's worth remembering that in 2024, smartphones, laptops, and lithium-ion batteries were the top three U.S. imports from China.

With shipments from China hitting those decade-plus lows, Apple is clearly not sitting idle. The company has been making increasingly significant moves to bolster its manufacturing presence in India, a core part of its wider strategy to diversify where its products are made. The customs data itself reflects this shift, showing that the value of phone components heading from China to India has roughly quadrupled over the past year. This surge in parts is directly feeding Apple's growing iPhone assembly operations in India. This diversification, however, hasn't gone without comment from Washington; President Trump recently publicly urged Apple CEO Tim Cook to prioritize bringing iPhone manufacturing to the U.S. rather than further expanding in India—a significant ask, given that iPhones have never been mass-produced stateside and doing so presents considerable hurdles.

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