Apple’s stock has gone down for two consecutive days due to news that Chinese government employees are not allowed to use iPhones.
The value of the company’s stocks in the stock market has decreased by more than 6%, which is almost $200 billion or £160 billion, in the last two days.
China is the third-biggest market for the technology giant. It made up 18% of the total money the company earned last year.
Most of Apple’s products are made in China by its largest supplier Foxconn.
The Wall Street Journal recently said that officials working for the Chinese government have been told not to bring iPhones to work or use them for their job.
The next day, Bloomberg News said that the ban may also apply to employees working at businesses owned by the government or supported by the government.
According to sources, officials were told not to use iPhones by their bosses recently. Other devices from foreign brands also had limitations placed on them.
Some agencies had already banned iPhones, according to the paper. But now, it seems like more agencies have decided to ban them as well.
It is unclear how well the instructions were shared with Chinese officials.
The reports were shared before the iPhone 15 is released on September 12th.
On Chinese social media, some individuals claiming to work for government-owned companies said they were instructed to stop using Apple devices before September ends. Someone made a joke that they were poor and could not afford to buy a new phone. They wondered what they should use for work.
China is a very important country for Apple, and they make iPhones there. But now Apple is also making more iPhones in India.
The Chinese government has not made an official statement in reply to the reports.
Apple did not quickly reply to the BBC’s request for a comment.
Knock-on effect means that when one thing happens, it can cause other things to happen as a result.
Apple is the most valuable company in the world, worth about $2. 8 trillion on the stock market.
In addition to Apple’s stock dropping, the stocks of some companies that supply Apple were also affected.
Qualcomm, the largest provider of smartphone chips, went down by over 7% on Thursday, while SK Hynix, a company from South Korea, saw its shares decrease by around 4% on Friday.
Tensions between the United States and China about technology have been increasing steadily, with both sides putting limitations.
This year, the countries Washington, Japan, and the Netherlands made it harder for China to get certain chip technology.
China responded by limiting the amount of two important materials used in the semiconductor industry that they would export.
Beijing is getting ready to create a new investment fund worth $40 billion to help strengthen its chip manufacturing industry.
Last week, when the US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was in Beijing, the Chinese tech company Huawei surprised everyone by revealing its new Mate 60 Pro smartphone.
On Friday, the company started selling the Pro+ version of the phone in advance.
The company TechInsights from Canada said that the phone has a new processor called 5G Kirin 9000s. This processor was made specifically for Huawei by China’s biggest chip-making company called SMIC.
TechInsights analyst Dan Hutcheson said that it shows how much China’s semiconductor industry has improved in terms of technology.
Investment firm Jefferies stated in a research note that this is a significant technological advancement for China.
This week, a US congressman named Mike Gallagher, who is in charge of a group in the House of Representatives that deals with China, asked the Commerce Department to put more limits on sending products to Huawei and SMIC.
Security update means making changes or improvements to protect a computer system or network from threats or attacks.
On Thursday, Apple came out with an urgent software update for many older and newer devices.
This was because they found a security problem that unknown hackers were taking advantage of.
The update was released because some experts found that hackers were breaking into Apple devices using a new and unknown method.
Apple also discovered a similar vulnerability on its own, so it quickly released updates to improve security for its customers.
This is the 15th time this year that Apple has had to release big security updates.