Several American companies, including Apple, have warned in different media and in different ways, that the policies of the Trump Administration against China, it can go against American interests. If the threat becomes real (it looks all right, from what we're seeing with TikTok and other Chinese apps) and Wechat can't be on the iPhone, for example, things are going to get very ugly.
If Chinese apps disappear from the App Store, its users will stop buying Apple devices
Donald Trump is hell-bent on thinking that everything that comes from China is bad. He wants to ban it on the grounds of greater national security. But along the way, you forget the millions of Chinese users who use American technology or "made in the USA" devices. Without going any further, we have to Apple has been working its way in the Asian country for a few years. Slow but steady work.
Currently, Apple is not the best-selling technology device company in China, but it is certainly one of the best positioned and every time respect for the brand is growing. In fact, in recent years it has had some details with this country in certain device launches and vice versa.
It is true that the American company has been charged on occasions for having followed the guidelines of the Asian Government regarding the App Store. Eliminating certain applications that the rulers did not like too much. A maneuver for which he even had to answer to Congress. Now the situation is similar. Your own government asks you to remove certain apps from the App Store, for security reasons. If before he did not refuse, now neither.
However, removing these Chinese applications from the App Store, but also from many American companies, will lead to a deterioration not only in trade relations between the two countries, but also between the companies themselves. Everything that has been sown may be lost as if it were a hurricane.
The economic cost that it can entail for companies like Apple must be tremendous. Taking into account that there are surveys that affirm that the 95% of Wechat users would stop using iPhone if you can't use this app. The losses would be billions of dollars, the market share would plummet and the position of American companies in China would disappear completely.
A survey on the Twitter-like Weibo service asking consumers to choose between WeChat and their iPhones has garnered more than 1.2 million responses, with about 95% of respondents saying they prefer to give up their devices. "The ban will force many Chinese users to switch from Apple to other brands because WeChat is really important to us." The ban threatens to turn iPhones into costly "electronic junk." These are two of the opinions left by individual citizens who have responded to the survey. It is clearly seen how the Application is preferred over the terminal. The same will happen to other companies of American origin such as Disney, Ford, Intel, Morgan Stanley, UPS, and Walmart.
That as long as we don't talk about revenge by the Chinese Government and / or companies in the country. Boycotts can lead to certain products created in the US and even higher taxes in the form of tariffs that would make American companies lose all the attractiveness that a market like the Chinese offers to the rest of the world right now. A country, China, that arguably the most powerful in this field.
In my opinion, this situation will affect Europe indirectly at first. and therefore to us. Prices will become more expensive and many devices will no longer be available for shipment to the old continent. I don't think the situation is going to be as dangerous as the US and China will be, but of course it will touch us and we will have to endure as the two big ones blame each other.