(Yicai Global) Aug. 11 -- Should US tech giant Apple be forced to remove the highly popular social messaging app WeChat from its worldwide App stores following the US government’s latest anti-China ban, it could drive down the firm's yearly smartphone shipments by as much as 30 percent, an analyst said.

Last week the Trump administration stepped up its campaign against certain Chinese tech firms operating in the US due to alleged national security concerns, by blocking all US transactions with WeChat parent firm Tencent Holdings and short video app TikTok’s operator ByteDance Technology from Sept. 20.

WeChat, which boasts over one billion users, is an essential part of most people’s daily lives in China. It integrates many essential services from social messaging, to making payments, carrying out e-commerce and news distribution.

If the WeChat app is no longer available on Apple devices worldwide, sales of its AirPods, iPads, Apple Watches, Mac computers and other hardware devices will most likely drop by between 15 percent and 25 percent a year, Ming-Chi Kuo, a tech sector analyst known for his accurate Apple predictions, said in a report yesterday.

However, it remains unclear just how broad the scope of the executive order will be once it comes into effect. Only removing the app from Apple’s US App store will mainly affect WeChat users in the US. This would see iPhone shipments falling by as much as 6 percent and that of other hardware devices by less than 3 percent, Kuo added.

Trump might take more extreme measures in the run up to the presidential election in November, Kuo said. Investors should cut their holdings in entities connected to the Cupertino, California-based firm’s supply chains as a precaution, he added.

Editor: Kim Taylor