This ‘whatever’ may hurt Apple in its biggest market
It has been a little over a week since US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to officially ban transactions with Chinese companies ByteDance and Tencent, that are the owners of TikTok and WeChat respectively. This action of the president was followed by a warning from a dozen of tech companies — including Apple — about what the implications of banning WeChat from their platforms will be.
Now, during the latest press conference with reporters at the White House, a reporter from Bloomberg — Justin Sink — asked Trump what he thought about all the warnings that the US tech giants have been giving on the matter.
Sink said, “There’s a lot of alarm among American companies about your order on WeChat. Apple, Ford, Disney, they’re worried because it’s such a big communications platform and payment platform in China, that if you ban US businesses from working with them, that they won’t be able to sell iPhones in China or similar markets.”
To this, Trump replied with a one word response, “Whatever.”
Sink followed with the President by asking, “So you don’t mind…?” to which Trump replied, “Gotta do what’s good in terms of the security of our country. We’ve been very badly let down by China,” clearly showing what holds priority for the government.
Sales in China, which is the biggest market for the iPhone maker, is expected to be majorly affected if this order leads to Apple removing WeChat from the App Store.
As per a report by Bloomberg, a survey has been conducted on Chinese microblogging site Weibo with over 1.2 million respondents and 95% among those have said that they would rather give up on their iPhone than having a device without WeChat support.
Renowned Apple tipster Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted a dip of 30% in the sales of iPhones in China if WeChat is removed from iPhones.
Now, during the latest press conference with reporters at the White House, a reporter from Bloomberg — Justin Sink — asked Trump what he thought about all the warnings that the US tech giants have been giving on the matter.
Sink said, “There’s a lot of alarm among American companies about your order on WeChat. Apple, Ford, Disney, they’re worried because it’s such a big communications platform and payment platform in China, that if you ban US businesses from working with them, that they won’t be able to sell iPhones in China or similar markets.”
To this, Trump replied with a one word response, “Whatever.”
Sink followed with the President by asking, “So you don’t mind…?” to which Trump replied, “Gotta do what’s good in terms of the security of our country. We’ve been very badly let down by China,” clearly showing what holds priority for the government.
Sales in China, which is the biggest market for the iPhone maker, is expected to be majorly affected if this order leads to Apple removing WeChat from the App Store.
As per a report by Bloomberg, a survey has been conducted on Chinese microblogging site Weibo with over 1.2 million respondents and 95% among those have said that they would rather give up on their iPhone than having a device without WeChat support.
Renowned Apple tipster Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted a dip of 30% in the sales of iPhones in China if WeChat is removed from iPhones.
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