Is it China or the iPhone 6S that is sending Apple to trouble again?

Apple got hit with a lot of bad news recently. First, the company posted its first quarterly revenue drop since 2003. And then billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn revealed that he has dumped all of his shares in Apple. NPR explores whether the company is really in trouble or if is this all just a bump in the road.

Though Apple's stock has rebounded nicely from its 52-week low levels, however, there's still a lot of uncertainty about the company going into the quarterly earnings. The apparently weak sales of the iPhone 6S has been a matter of great concern among investors.

The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are great smartphones, ones that are pretty tempting to Apple fans trying to decide on the best time to buy a new iPhone: Is it better to buy an iPhone 6s now or wait until the iPhone 7’s release date this fall? Whether your old smartphone needs replacing ASAP or you’ve mentally allocated your tax refund to a brand new iPhone, you may be leaning toward the iPhone 6s. But because no smartphone is perfect, the iPhone 6s has its own share of problems, despite numerous positive reviews from both tech reviewers and everyday consumers.

Coupled with that, China's shutdown of iTunes and iBooks is an unsubtle reminder of the Chinese government's power over Apple. Apple stared down the United States government over iPhone encryption, but China has the power to bankrupt Apple in a matter of months.

Also iOS 9 has had a bumpy ride. Despite claims this generation of iOS would focus on optimisation as opposed to major features, each major iOS 9 release – 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 – has suffered from significant problems. But even if the bugs haven’t improved since iOS 8, Apple AAPL +1.64%’s attitude towards them certainly has.

Last month Apple launched iOS 9.3.1 – primarily to address serious problems introduced in iOS 9.3 – and this fix in turn was discovered to cause a majority security hole. Yet, unlike the silence that greeted many problems in iOS 8, Apple has again fronted up immediately and admitted to the flaw.

Apple fessed up to the Washington Times, confirming iOS 9.3.1 contained a bug that made it easy to bypass lockscreen security (both PIN and fingerprint) to access a user’s contacts and photos.

Initially when Apple launched the first generation MacBook, Intel's first Core M processor generation was grounded on the company's Broadwell architecture. It was very difficult for the chipmaker to manufacture Core-based chips for MacBook. Recently Apple refreshed its MacBook computers using second-generation Core M processors grounded on Intel’s Skylake architecture.

This new enhanced processor includes some important changes like superior support for hardware video codecs, noteworthy smaller package size, faster graphics and CPU performance, and an integrated image signal processor. However, no single improvement can change the game, but, if combined together, they will convey a substantial advancement in the user understanding.

The most important change is the use of large battery size to offer a more efficient platform. It permitted the company to claim an enhancement in battery life to 11 hours of iTunes movie playback and 10 hours of web browsing.

According to the China Mobile’s (CHL) most recent quarterly results, it added many new 4G users, slightly less than its record December quarter. It reported 64.2 million new 4G customers as compared to 64.7 million customers in previous quarter. China Mobile now has 376.5 million 4G customers, a surge of 163% year over year, which accounts for 45% of its entire 833.9 million users. This clearly indicates that China is one of the most important markets to drive the company’s future growth.

Another reason why China plays a significant role in top-line growth of Apple because it accounted for 53% of the company’s overall revenue growth in 2015 and 70% of the company's top-line growth in the fourth quarter of 2015. Therefore, it is very necessary to understand the Apple’s China business.

On the other hand, China has the second highest operating margin for Apple and it produces the second highest operating margin dollars at $7.6 billion. The company recently reported that China will become its largest market, and if existing drifts continues, it will be Apple’s biggest operating profit contributor before it internments the top-line title.

Although the iPhone 6S will fail to beat the bar set by its predecessor, its most likely that Apple will report a good quarter. The introduction of the iPhone SE, along with the enhancements in the Mac should offset some of the lost sales from the iPhone 6S. Interesting times(?)