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China has become a popular boogeyman—for the markets and, now, for Apple.

The iPhone maker made a rare cut to its sales outlook Wednesday, blaming a bigger deceleration in emerging markets, especially China. The second largest economy is slowing, and could be a convenient excuse for companies missing forecasts, but two veteran global investors say Apple’s problems are largely self-inflicted, not a harbinger of a looming catastrophe in emerging markets.

Rupal Bhansali, chief investment officer of Ariel International and Ariel Global, and Rajiv Jain, head of GQG Partners, which invests in global and emerging market stocks, are among the veteran investors who have been warning of potential trouble for Apple for months. The stock has lost more than $300 billion in market value since it breached the $1 trillion mark in October.

Apple stock fell about 7% in after-hours trading following the warning, which CEO Tim Cook attributed to weak iPhone sales, largely in China, and currency fluctuations. In an interview with CNBC, he also blamed lack of subsidies for telecoms and lower battery replacement price disincentivizing upgrades.

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Bhansali described the warning as a red herring because Apple should have foreseen the problems when they cut their earnings outlook in the third quarter. “The warning is an Apple misjudgment. We don’t view the Apple pre-announcement as a canary in the coal mine for emerging markets at large,” says Bhansali. “It is true that China has had a broad slowdown but the Apple weakness is more due to company specific factors. Blaming macro weakness and trade concerns is obfuscation.”

Bhansali has argued that consumers are no longer seeing the value for new models of Apple products, like the iPhone XS and MAX, which were more expensive than the iPhoneX, which she says itself was a disappointment. She attributes the weaker sales to competition from Huawei, which just had a strong 2018.

Jain also thinks the announcement is due to Apple-specific problems, including lack of product innovation and differentiation versus Chinese rivals. Emerging markets, beyond China, are too small to move the needle for Apple, Jain says. Plus, he doesn’t think the Apple decline is a push back to trade tensions. “China has been very careful [about] not stirring up sentiments against competitors like Apple,” Jain says.

Both are not optimistic about emerging markets and see a slowdown. Jain became more bearish on technology several months ago as he began to see signs of a slowdown in gaming, smartphones and server demand and investors continued to expect faster growth from chip makers and other technology companies.

Write to Reshma Kapadia at reshma.kapadia@barrons.com