“During Apple’s most recent financial earnings call in February, CEO Tim Cook said that the U.S. company had ‘an all-time record for revenue in mainland China” for its December quarter,’ Jean Baptiste Su writes for Forbes. “Another interesting data point regarding iPhone sales in China that Cook highlighted during the call was that in the increasingly rich urban China, as well as in the US, the top five smartphones for the last quarter of the year were all iPhones.”
“Last year, Apple’s revenue in Greater China (mainland China, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, and Macau) was $46 billion, roughly half of its U.S. business, representing 19% of its total sales for 2017,” Su writes. “However, if the Chinese government decides to ban the sale of Apple products for national security reasons, in retaliation for the implicit ban of Huawei and ZTE in the U.S., Apple could suddenly lose 19% of its revenue and access to the world’s largest consumer market, which would have been a formidable growth-engine for its future. The Cupertino, California-based company will also see its $913 billion market capitalization, as of this writing, melt away and be forced to lay off 10% to 20% of its workforce, representing up to 27,000 employees.”
Su writes, “Four years ago, China already banned government agencies to purchase Apple products for national security reasons so it wouldn’t be too hard to extend it to the rest of the population.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: More importantly, what if space aliens arrive and decide to blow up the moon?
SEE ALSO:
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David E.” for the heads up.]