The iPhone ban in China is accelerating across the country
It's in September Depth began to prohibit employees in state bodies from using it iPhone devices and other foreign technologies within government agencies. A new report today states that the iPhone ban has spread to multiple Chinese agencies, including “at least eight provinces.”
The report describes this as a “major step forward” from the initial iPhone ban in September, which only affected a “small number of agencies” in China. Instead of iPhones or other foreign smartphones, Chinese officials are asking government agency employees to use domestic brand smartphones.
“Several state-owned firms and government agencies in at least eight provinces, including on the east coast, have ordered their employees to start using local brands in the past few months.“, he reports Bloomberg.
Primakov/Shutterstock.comThis is a significant step up from September, when some agencies in Beijing and Tianjin began telling staff to leave foreign devices at home, said the sources, who asked to remain anonymous.
Banning iPhone devices in China is an inappropriate retaliation
In September, Chinese officials denied reports that they had banned iPhones from any government agency. At the same time, however, they expressed concern about “high media exposure of security incidents related to Apple phonesa“. The US government called the iPhone ban in China “inappropriate retaliation“.
As the report points out, there are still many unknown details about the extent of the iPhone ban in China and how strictly it is being enforced. However, the ban represents a “big challenge” for Apple and other foreign technology companies like Samsung, which is also present in a big way.