Apple Inc (AAPL)

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The other scenario comes from Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz and his team. In a note titled "Fading 'Reality Distortion Field,'" they said the unique dominance of certain Chinese apps hurts Apple. Those apps are fully functional on Android, which dominates China, but not on iPhone. Apple doesn't allow Tencent users to use the tipping function inside WeChat, for instance. That won't sound like a big deal to people in the West, but in China apps like WeChat are used almost ubiquitously. It has 1 billion users.

The Oppenheimer note - based on conversations with Apple's own suppliers - says:

"We recently conducted a series of company meetings in China and Taiwan that focused on the smartphone supply chain. There was general consensus among our conversations that confirms our thesis that Apple's dwindling market share in Greater China is due to the lack of compelling differentiation among hardware and software. The mobile user experience in China is heavily dictated by Tencent and other local Internet companies, making Apple's software and services ineffective as key differentiators. That said, we do believe there is pent-up demand for iPhone 8, which is widely reported to make a few major design changes. We expect a temporary rebound in share."