First, Apple's losing market share in the Chinese smartphone market and it's not simply due to cheaper phones. Apple was/is primarily a status brand, but what's the status advantage in having an $800 iPhone vs an $800 Samsung? There isn't one and everyone is starting to recognizes that.
Second, WeChat runs everything in China. Every. Thing. It's your WhatsApp, your Skype, your Yelp, your OpenTable, your Venmo, etc. Every cent that Apple tries to take out of WeChat "tips" is not a cent that it's snatched from another faceless corporation, it's a cent out of the hands of individuals who rely on those tips. It's money leaving the hands of individuals and going into the largest market-cap company in the world. Is it a surprise that people are going to be pissed?
Apple should be careful not to overplay its hand. China has already banished major American companies (Google + Facebook) for not playing by its rules and it could easily position itself to do the same to Apple.
I would be quite happy to see Apple fail, not because of Schadenfreude (Honest, I swear!) but because it could have a normative effect on other tech companies to reduce the amount "late-stage capital"-type behavior they engage in.
Yep, let's imagine if the Chinese government bans Apple products tomorrow in China, what happens?
Instantly we'd see Apple's stock crashes by 40%, wiping out over $300B in market cap, if not more, in a single day. AAPL is a heavily weighted member on the Dow, and it will trigger a chain reaction that will crash both S&P 500 and NASDAQ.
Apple pissing off the Chinese can literally trigger a US recession in the short term.
The silver lining is that WeChat/Tencent != Chinese Government, and I think Apple isn't crazy enough to be pissing off the CPC yet.
Apple does not make nearly as much money in china as you seem to think. More importantly 1/3 of their stock price is from cash on hand. Further one company even AAPL taking a 3-10% hit is small potatoes.
Second if China suddenly dumped AAPL manufacturing most companies would quickly pull out of Chinese manufacturing which would destroy their economy and likely result in civil war within a decade. Banning products has no such risk.
>Apple does not make nearly as much money in china as you seem to think.
I don't know how much you think Apple makes from China, but I know it's a bit more than 20% of their total revenue as of last quarter. It's almost as much as the entire Europe combined.
>Further one company even AAPL taking a 3-10% hit is small potatoes.
3-10%? AAPL goes down like 5% all the time on a rumor that they may miss their iPhone shipment forecast, if the Chinese government bans AAPL products tomorrow you think they'd only go down 3-10%?
>Second if China suddenly dumped AAPL manufacturing most companies would quickly pull out of Chinese manufacturing which would destroy their economy and likely result in civil war within a decade. Banning products has no such risk.
What? You don't just pull out of China for manufacturing. Where are you gonna go? In fact Apple can't even pull out of China for manufacturing in a short amount of time. That's right, Apple would still make iPhones in China even if the Chinese government bans them from selling it there.
Additionally, why would anyone care about what the Chinese government do to Apple? Did Yahoo or Microsoft leave China after the CPC banned Google?
So why do you think half of Apple's market cap would disappear?
> Where are you gonna go?
Anywhere? Apple has $200B in cash, they could have factories in Manhattan if they wanted to.
> Did Yahoo or Microsoft leave China after the CPC banned Google?
Google hadn't made investments on the scale Apple has. Lots of investment would be scared off by China effectively nationalizing Apple's massive capital investments. A more immediate impact would be the retaliation against Chinese exports to the US.
The whole thought exercise is ridiculous, why is China going to risk it's own economy and stability for WeChat tips?
This is what I think Apple is hoarding cash for, they'll want to move a shit load back to the US if they can get the tax break for it and then I think we'll see them spend big on automated manufacturing in the US and, to some degree, Europe.
China is already getting a little expensive for some types of manufacturing. Indonesia is often the go to destination for really cheap labor in a reasonably stable country, but there are others.
So, if China starts looking less stable that's plenty of incentive to jump ship and likely save some money.
Your scenario will never happen because Apple indirectly employs millions of Chinese workers. Tencent has 38k employees.
The government's interests are more aligned with Apple than they are with Tencent.
Also President Xi Jinping is relishing the opportunity to "lead" on the global stage in terms of climate change, trade and globalization in general. He's never going to allow a ban of Apple over an inconsequential business dispute.
A crash in a stock market index is not a recession. The accepted definition of a recession in an economy is two successive quarters of contraction in the GDP.
This is what happens with you don't account for human nature in corporate spreadsheets. This is a situation where even a 0.0001% apple tax would have caused great harm since people would object to that on principle alone.
First, Apple's losing market share in the Chinese smartphone market and it's not simply due to cheaper phones. Apple was/is primarily a status brand, but what's the status advantage in having an $800 iPhone vs an $800 Samsung? There isn't one and everyone is starting to recognizes that.
Second, WeChat runs everything in China. Every. Thing. It's your WhatsApp, your Skype, your Yelp, your OpenTable, your Venmo, etc. Every cent that Apple tries to take out of WeChat "tips" is not a cent that it's snatched from another faceless corporation, it's a cent out of the hands of individuals who rely on those tips. It's money leaving the hands of individuals and going into the largest market-cap company in the world. Is it a surprise that people are going to be pissed?
Apple should be careful not to overplay its hand. China has already banished major American companies (Google + Facebook) for not playing by its rules and it could easily position itself to do the same to Apple.