The trade war of President Trump with China began on Tuesday, and the White House spent 10% of tariffs on all Chinese goods that entered the US. The largest companies of the Silicon Valley have already been caught in what could be converted into a series of Tit-For-Tat actions between the two largest economies in the world.
On Tuesday, China has announced the State Market Regulation Directorate (SAMR) that it opens an antitrust investigation on Google (Goog,, Googl). The agency did not give additional details about the move.
Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that China is considering starting the antitrust investigation of Apple (Aapl) Practice App Store. Samr officials have been talking to Apple managers for some time now, but the time of potential probe sets Apple as another pledgee in the match between the economic chess between the superpowers.
It is all part of China’s efforts to punish the most prominent US companies and inflict their own pain now, because the two countries are still fighting in the coming weeks and months. Here’s the development that companies will feel warmth that should remain relatively intact. For now.
Apple takes hits from the USA China in the last economic conflict between countries. Now they have launched things by imposing it Tariff on goods made in Chinawhich includes Apple products and its important iPhone.
Stuck in the middle: Nvidia Jensen Huang CEO in Las Vegas last month. (Photo autotur Widak/Anadolo via Getty Images) ·Anadolu via Getty Images
This would encourage prices on Apple’s hardware higher, potentially by as much as 10%, or forcing Apple to eat some or all tariff costs, lowering the iPhone margin. Apple can also be filed for exemption on tariffs, which is also during the previous Trump administration. This would allow him to bring his devices to the US without being paid 10% by payment. But so far, there is no talk of whether it is able to.
China is now revenge on its antitrust investigation by Apple’s Practices of the App Store stores. The investigation itself is not unique. The European Union and other countries have forced Apple to change in their demands and canvas systems in the trade in recent years. And the Ministry of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Applestating that it deliberately makes it difficult for consumers to use a third party hardware or move to the second belt of the device.
But Tariffs and the Chinese Antitrust’s action are unlikely to significantly damage Apple’s finances.
According to the Analyst Bofa Securities Wamsi Mohan, Apple could move the device assembly to factories in other countries, something that the company has been doing since Coid has exposed weakness in its supply chain.
If Apple builds 80% of her devices outside China, she would only see $ 0.05 earnings per share impact on this fiscal year. If 50% is obtained outside China, which could rise to between $ 0.07 and $ 0.12 per share.
The Chinese antitrust breakthrough similarly recessed in Apple’s earnings, but that would not be deletion, explained Wedbush’s day in the note of the investor.
The company has raised $ 26 billion in revenue from services, including the sale of the App Store, in Q1 and $ 124 billion in total for the quarter. According to Ives, Apple generates $ 5 billion a year through its Chinese App Store, which is a relatively thin part of the overall pie company.
Squeezed from both sides: Apple CEO Tim Cook participates in Donald Trump’s inauguration. (Kevin Lamarque / Pool / AFP) ·Kevin Lamarque via Getty Images
“It’s less about exposure to investors’ revenues, and more about building US/China tension with American great technology in line for retribution over the arch,” Ives wrote in his letter.
Intel, Google and Nvidia are also facing potential antitrust investigations as part of the reaction of China to US tariffs, which could also mean Intel problems.
The manufacturer of chips generates most of its income by selling in China. China in 2024. It was $ 15.5 billion of $ 53.1 billion in revenue. American, Intel’s second biggest region, made $ 12.9 billion.
Intel is in the midst of many years of effort, putting a company in a particularly insecure situation if China decides to take some kind of action against the company.
Google, for its part, does very little business in China. After withdrawing his business from the company a few years ago, the only real presence that the company has to sell ads for Chinese companies that want to reach foreign customers.
“It is almost comical that China is considering regulating Google – since Google is effectively banned there,” Deepwater Asseta Management Management Partner Gene Munster wrote in research note.
Things are a bit trembling for Nvidia. The company under pressure from China and the United States, after China launched an investigation into the company in December after the then cross-section of Biden limited the exports of certain Nvidia chips into the country. And after the debut of Deepseek’s AI models, which the company developed using the insidious Nvidia chips, now they are considering even more of these export limits.
China was $ 5.4 billion of $ 35 billion in revenue in Q3, which was left behind by $ 14.8 billion in US dollars sales. But as one of the largest markets of AI industry, China is an important part of the entire company strategy.
It is not quite clear what the antitrust probe would mean for Nvidia in China, but if he now forces the company to limit more chips than he already does, he could face the winds of revenue from the region.
For now, Big Tech has to fight American tariffs. But with China signals that it is ready to injure the Silicon Valley companies if Trump is pushing things further, the companies will not be able to rest for a while.
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