How an Apple supplier became China's worst performing stock this year

BOE Technology Group Co.’s stock market reversal is dramatic even by China’s outsized standards. It took less than a year for the Apple Inc. supplier to go from one of the nation’s best-performing stocks to among its worst -- a precipitous selloff that may not be over. China’s largest maker of screens for TVs and phones shed more than 32 per cent of its value this year, the steepest decline among the 50 biggest companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen. That was prompted by ballooning supply and plunging prices for the large screens that comprise most of its business. Even earning a coveted spot on Apple’s list of top 200 suppliers couldn’t overcome fears that demand-supply imbalances will persist, analysts say. 

That’s a far cry from 2017 when its shares more than doubled, net income quadrupled and executives talked up their prospects of getting into lucrative smartphone screens. It ranked fifth in terms of gains among mainland China’s 50 largest publicly traded stocks. And the company sketched bold plans to get into next-generation OLED or organic light-emitting diode screens and of supplying future iPhones. “BOE’s ride is over. Right now I can’t see catalysts for growth,” said Zhang Haidong, head of research for Jinkuang Investment Management. “Despite getting onto Apple’s supplier's list, its prospects remain tied to TVs, and they don’t look great.”