[yonkshi]

Currently visiting China for Chinese New Year, and can't help but to notice the anti-US anti-Apple sentiment that arose recently. Although anecdotal, I think the nationalistic sentiment has a lot to do with the dip in sales.

To put in perspective, most Chinese netizens are generally pretty critical of the Chinese gov. Chinese with higher educations usually look up to western culture and products. However after the Huawei arrest incident, the Chinese netizens were pissed at the American government, I've never seen such anger towards the US gov, and huge waves of boycotts began. They think that American gov is bullying a Chinese company into obeying US law even outside US, and their response is to boycott American products.

During my two weeks here I've talked to a dozen random people at bars, friends gatherings and on the plane. Normally US-China politics never come up, but it has come up in almost every single conversation this trip. Most of these people mention that they recent switched to a Chinese phone or their next phone will be a domestic phone.

[free652]

For some reason I doubt that you have the right perspective. Chinese are very nationalistic and every non immigrant Chinese I met is pro Chinese government. Netcitizens are even worse.

American are persecuting a company that disobeyed American laws on American soil. No a single Chinese would blink an eye about persecuting American companies in China.

China is having economic issues, that's the major reason in sales' dip.

[ardy42]

> American are persecuting a company that disobeyed American laws on American soil. No a single Chinese would blink an eye about persecuting American companies in China.

Hypocrites exist. The Chinese government was shamelessly hypocritical over the Meng arrest, complaining that it violated her "human rights," [1] while their utter indifference to them has yet again been made clear by the camps in Xinjiang. I doubt everyday nationalistic citizens would be any more thoughtful.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46465768: "A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters: 'The detention without giving any reason violates a person's human rights.' ... Beijing has itself frequently been accused by rights groups of rights abuses including unexplained detentions"

> China is having economic issues, that's the major reason in sales' dip.

Nationalistic ferver drummed up by the Huawei arrest could compound the sales drop.

[dethac]

So... because China violates the rights of Chinese citizens, the US deserves to violate the rights of Chinese citizens?

It goes both ways. I'm sure we'd all prefer if everyone would just stop violating human rights, but that isn't happening. It's not fair to ignore the US's human rights violations just because of China's, and it's not fair to ignore China's human rights violations just because of the US's. Both governments are hypocritical.

[ksec]

The boycott of American products is very real. What we do not know is how large the impact really are. For example Hermes posted a record quarter in China again, doesn't seems to be hurt by whatever downturn there is in China.

[stephencanon]

Hermès is French.

[newnewpdro]

One would expect them to suffer in China as well if the cause were economic, which I believe is the point the parent is making.

[stephencanon]

That’s a reasonable interpretation, thanks. I’m not sure that it tells us much given that Apple and Hermès are in fairly different markets, unfortunately.

[lern_too_spel]

They're both in the luxury fashion market in China.

[roboys]

China's economy has less to do with iPhone sales decline than the fact that Apple's smartphone innovation has plateaued. There is no "must-have" feature in the current gen iPhone that requires an upgrade, especially not for $1200+. The jig is up.

Expect AAPL to decline from now on unless they pivot or get some balls and use that stockpiled cash to experiment heavily. Tim Cook is not willing to burn cash on R &D like he needs to maintain a major competitive edge.

[iguy]

Agree that sounds like the leading factor.

There is a line of thinking that the trade war comes at a convenient time PR-wise for the Chinese got. It gives them a scapegoat for domestic economic issues, which they are only too happy to talk up. (But I don't really know anything, and welcome expert correction.)

[jjcc]

I totally agree with your observation. I've been there in last Dec and this Jan. Probably the hostile sentiment is even stronger towards Canada (Which traditionally most Chinese see as a friendly country partially because of a couple of famous Canadian who are almost unknown to Canadian themselves.) than US. Since I'm Chinese Canadian, the topic was always brought up during dinner/lunch with friends.

However I'm not sure if the boycott really has a big impact on sales. The consumers quite pragmatic when they spend their own hard-earned money even the sentiment is really strong as you observed. In China there are cut-throat competitions across all markets. Mobile phone market is one of them. There are quite a few smartphone manufacturers fighting for market share. Some used-to-be-good companies could not survive but the news only limited in China. Without boycott Apple sales still could go down because of competition.

[dis-sys]

> Chinese with higher educations usually look up to western culture and products.

this was probably true 10-15 years ago. rather than some cheap talks purely based on "what I heard" or "what I believe", let's have some quick concrete numbers published [1] by the top Chinese university Tsinghua. In its 2018 annual graduate report, the summary table on page 2 shows that for the total 6,960 students graduated in 2018, 16.5% chose to pursue further studies overseas, while 28.5% chose to continue in Chinese universities for a higher degree.

the most shocking number comes from the table 6 on page 9 - out of the top 25 employers of the 2018 graduates there is only 1 foreign company (Microsoft).

I checked the same reports from the previous few years, the trend is the same.

[1] http://career.tsinghua.edu.cn/publish/career/8155/2018122915...

[Wowfunhappy]

> In its 2018 annual graduate report, the summary table on page 2 shows that for the total 6,960 students graduated in 2018, 16.5% chose to pursue further studies overseas, while 28.5% chose to continue in Chinese universities for a higher degree.

I wouldn't expect this to correlate with opinions of "western culture and products". There are a whole lot of reasons why you'd choose to stray in your country vs going oversees. For instance, how easy is it to get a US visa vs just staying in your native country?

[dis-sys]

> There are a whole lot of reasons why you'd choose to stray in your country vs going oversees. For instance, how easy is it to get a US visa vs just staying in your native country?

there is only one western company in the top 25 top employers list, is that related to US visas?