Trump’s WeChat Ban Could Adversely Affect iPhone Sales: Kuo

Last weekend, US President Donald Trump signed anexecutive orderbarring any financial transactions with ByteDance, and WeChat. While TikTok isreportedly mulling a federal lawsuitagainst the order, there are other issues going on with WeChat. Famed Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo says that a full implementation of the US ban on WeChat could significantly affect iPhone sales.

According to the order, US companies can’t have any business relations with WeChat or TikTok. As a result, theorder will force Apple to remove WeChat from its App Stores worldwide.Considering how important WeChat is to the Chinese market, this could result in huge losses in sales for Apple. In fact,Kuo estimates a 30% decline in iPhone sales due to the WeChat ban.

That said, there are chances that the executive order weakens the terms before it goes into action. In such a case,if Apple is only required to remove WeChat from the US App Store, the decline could be much lower.Kuo estimates around 3-6% decline in iPhone sales in such a case.

WeChat is one of the most important apps in China. It covers multiple bases ranging from messaging to payments, social networking, news, and a lot more. In fact, it’s referred to as an ‘OS within the OS’ due to its wide-ranging feature set. Removing WeChat from the App Store in China will undoubtedly be disastrous for Apple, especially since iPhones don’t allow app installation from any other sources.

Akshay Gangwar

Greetings, tech titans and fellow literary time-travelers! I’m Akshay, your tech-whisperer and Harry Potter’s number one stalker – seriously, don’t ask me how many times I’ve read those books; it’s borderline unhealthy.

Working in the tech journalism industry since 2016, I have 7 years of experience covering everything from technology news, to well-researched resource articles. Now the Content Strategist at Beebom, I often pen down op-eds for our website, sharing expert commentary on the latest in technology, AI, and electric cars.

Add new comment

Name

Email ID

Δ

01

02

03

04

05