SAN FRANCISCO — Apple reduced its revenue expectations for the first time in 16 years on Wednesday because of poor iPhone sales in China, an unexpected development that underscored the slowing of China’s economy and raised fears of further turmoil in global markets.
Apple’s surprise announcement was the clearest confirmation yet that the Chinese economy is in serious trouble. Beijing’s effort last spring to clamp down on credit, which sparked a slowdown, and an intensifying trade war with the United States have unnerved consumers and businesspeople alike.
“Apple is a bellwether,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The iPhone is something that everyone knows and buys, and if people aren’t buying it, then that’s a pretty good sign they’re having a hard time.”
It is not clear whether this is a problem particular to Apple or whether China’s slowing economy will affect other American companies, especially the tech giants and Detroit automakers. Either way, investors are bound to grow nervous, especially after the stock market’s recent gyrations. Tech stocks, which drove much of the bull market of the past few years, have become a drag on it.
With more than 40 stores and hundreds of millions of iPhones sold in the country, few American companies have been as successful as Apple in China — or have as much to lose. China is Apple’s third-largest market, with nearly $52 billion in sales in the company’s most recent fiscal year, mostly from iPhone sales.
The company said it expected revenue of about $84 billion in the quarter that ended Saturday, down from a previous estimate of $89 billion to $93 billion. That would be a nearly 5 percent decline from the same quarter a year ago.
Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, said the sales decline in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan would exceed the $4.3 billion overall drop in revenue.
“While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in greater China,” Mr. Cook said in a letter to investors. “We believe the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States.”
Apple’s revenue warnings sent its shares down more than 7 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday evening, dropping its market value to less than $700 billion. Apple had become the first company to surpass a $1 trillion valuation in August.
Its declining share price could have a ripple effect. Asian markets traded lower early on Thursday, and futures that predict Wall Street’s performance suggested shares there would fall in the morning as well.
Mr. Cook has for years navigated the difficult politics of China, including its tightening controls over the internet, but the Trump administration’s tougher stance on the country is posing a challenge.
The iPhone was exempt from the first round of tariffs on products built in China. But Mr. Cook said Wednesday that trade tensions and accompanying volatility in global markets had weighed on Chinese consumers and Apple’s profits.
The company’s other revenue sources, including iPad, Mac and software sales, together increased nearly 19 percent in the quarter. In the United States and other developed markets like Germany and South Korea, Apple said, it actually had record revenues. The company recently said it would end a longtime custom and no longer break out unit sales of iPhones, a change that rattled investors.
While Apple posted roughly flat global sales growth of the iPhone in the third quarter, Chinese rival Huawei jumped 33 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to the market research firm Counterpoint. The figures helped Huawei maintain its status as the second-largest smartphone maker in the world behind Samsung, which posted a 13 percent fall in sales in the same quarter.
Huawei has grown despite the China slowdown, as the company has looked to other markets. In the third quarter, its sales rose 13 percent in China but 60 percent outside the country.
Read for more The Nytimes
