China Bans iPhone: Impact on Apple in Chinese Market

Editor, CNBC Indonesia

Tech

Wednesday, 06/09/2023 17:20 WIB

Photo: Chinese President Xi Jinping meets Bill Gates, Friday (16/6/2023). (Reuters/CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION (CCTV) Video Screenshot))

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Chinese authorities prohibit civil servants from using iPhones or other foreign cell phone brands. The new rules were announced by high-ranking officials to their staff, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

According to inside sources, the orders have been distributed in recent weeks. However, it is not yet clear what the scale of the policy will be, quoted from Reuters, Wednesday (6/9/2023).

This ban was made ahead of Apple’s grand event next week. The Cupertino giant is about to launch the latest iPhone 15 series.

Presumably, the Joe Biden administration wants to discourage civil servants from buying the latest iPhones. This further underscores the geopolitical tensions between the US and China.

China is the biggest iPhone market. One-fifth of iPhone sales come from the country. The latest ban by the Chinese authorities is still on a small scale. However, this does not rule out the possibility that this will affect Apple’s business in the future, if the rules are expanded.

China and the US have been increasingly blocking each other’s technology. Starting from the US government blocking TikTok, then there was mutual blocking of chip technology, to most recently the issue of banning the iPhone within the government of the Bamboo Curtain country.

Apple and China’s information center did not respond to this rule.

For information, China has started to reduce its dependency on foreign technology since more than a decade ago. One of them is by asking the bank to use locally made software.

In addition, the government is also encouraging domestic chip production to develop the technology.

(fab/fab)

2023-09-06 10:20:00
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