(News Bulletin 247) – The action lost 2.92% on Wall Street on Thursday after having already lost 3.6% the day before, weighed down by press reports on China’s bans. But do we really have to worry about the Cupertino group?

With Apple, any stock market movement necessarily amounts to tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars. First world market capitalization, the Cupertino group fell again by 2.92% Thursday on Wall Street, a drop which follows the previous decline of 3.6% the day before. Cumulatively, the title lost 6.5% in two sessions.

This translates into a drop in its market capitalization (the stock market value of all of its shares) of nearly 200 billion dollars (190 billion dollars according to Deutsche Bank).

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China in question

The fall of the share is due, for two sessions, to press information from the wall street journal regarding China. On Wednesday, the US Business Daily reported that Chinese authorities have banned government agency employees from using or bringing iPhones (or foreign phones) into the office.

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that this ban could be extended to “a plethora” of other entities, i.e. other government-controlled agencies as well as public companies.

This information casts doubt on Chinese political risk for Apple, as China accounted for 19.2% of its sales in its latest quarterly results ($15.76 billion for the three-month period ended July 1).

Moreover, according to the wall street journal, the sales generated in the country have resulted, in recent years, in an operating margin 12 percentage points higher than that of the group as a whole. It is also a country where the production of Apple is gigantic, notably via its links with its supplier Foxconn.

A barking market

“The biggest threat to Apple a few days before the launch of its next iPhone could be a resurgence of Chinese nationalism that would cause consumers to flee its device,” notes John Plassard of Mirabaud. Apple must, in fact, present the iPhone 15 during a keynote which will take place on September 12.

“If Beijing goes ahead, this unprecedented blockade will be the culmination of a years-long effort to stamp out the use of foreign technologies in sensitive environments, and will coincide with Beijing’s efforts to reduce its dependence on respect to American software and circuitry,” Bloomberg said.

For the wall street journal, Apple appears as a huge “pawn” in this game of checkers in which Beijing and Washington are engaged. “If Apple is not able to dodge the bullets between the United States and China, who will be?” Worries the American daily.

However, these geopolitical fears may have been exaggerated. At least that’s what Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives seems to be suggesting.

“Given Chinese news over the past few days, we believe that the worst-case scenario of banning iPhones from Chinese agencies is grossly overstated, with less than 500,000 iPhones in China. the 45 million expected to be sold in China over the next year,” he wrote on X (ex-Twitter).

“Apple has gained massive market share in the Chinese smartphone market – we estimate that Cupertino has gained about 300 basis points (3%, editor’s note) of market share in the key Chinese market over the past 18 months “, continued the analyst, judging that the market “barks” more than it “bites”.