Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) shares decline to a Week’s Low After claiming Apple Reduced Its Apps

Northern, WI 1/29/2013 (avauncer) - Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. (NYSE:QIHU) declined to its lowest level in over a week, after it claimed that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) had removed its software from its iTunes store and also it got a warning on unfair competition. Last week, Qihoo’s (NYSE:QIHU) apps were suddenly taken off from iTunes store without any reason, according to the company’s CFO Alex Xu.

Even Beijing Industrial and Commercial Administration Bureau issued a warning to the company’s management saying that the usage of  anti-virus software in its Internet browsers could be regarded as unfair competition. This was mentioned in the post on the bureau’s microblog. A senior analyst with Echo He said, “Competition is intensifying. If the authorities call Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) to answer some questions then investors in the U.S. will think that’s serious.”

Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) said that Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) used a plug-in to detect if the users are using the Qihoo’s (NYSE:QIHU) browser. A pop-up window alerts the users that Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) browser and Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) system are incompatible and so force the users to switch browsers, according to the email sent by Xu. Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) began selling search engine from August, thus allowing it to compete with Baidu. (NASDAQ:BIDU)

Tom Neumayr,  Apple’s . (NASDAQ:AAPL) spokesman  refused to state if Qihoo’s (NYSE:QIHU) apps were removed from iTunes. Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) doesn’t anticipate the event to impact its financial or operational performance significantly.

The shares of Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) declined by 1.5% to close at $31.5

The shares of Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) were up by 3.13% to close at $111.39

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