Chinese smartphone exports to US decline to lowest level since 2011

By Andy Lin and Vlad Savov

  Chinese shipments of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other mobile devices to the US dived to their lowest levels since 2011 in April, underscoring how the threat of US tariffs choked off the flow of big-ticket goods between the world’s two largest economies. 

Smartphone exports slid 72 per cent to just under $700 million last month, sharply outpacing an overall 21 per cent drop in Chinese shipments to the US, detailed customs data showed on Tuesday. That highlighted the way the Trump administration’s tariffs campaign — peaking with 145 per cent levies on Chinese goods — is disrupting tech supply chains and diverting electronics elsewhere. 

Investors fear a global trade war that would erode some of the US-China bilateral trade that reached $690 billion in 2024, decimating industries and raising prices for consumers. Tensions remain high: Beijing this week accused the Trump administration of undermining recent trade talks in Geneva by pursuing sanctions on Huawei Technologies Co.’s artificial intelligence chips. 

Last year, the three biggest US imports from China were smartphones, laptops and lithium-ion batteries, while liquid petroleum gas, oil, soybeans, gas turbines, and machines to make semiconductors were some of the most valuable US exports to China.

 

The value of phone component exports to India — home to Apple’s biggest iPhone production base outside of China — roughly quadrupled over the course of the past year, according to China’s General Administration of Customs. 

Apple has accelerated a shift of production to India, though Trump recently criticized that practice and urged Apple to bring iPhone manufacturing home. The device has never been produced in the US, a project that appears unfeasible at least in the short run.