Indonesia has banned the marketing and sale of the iPhone 16 model due to Apple’s failure to comply with local investment regulations, according to its Industry Ministry.
Southeast Asia’s largest economy has a young and tech-savvy population, with more than 100 million people under the age of 30, but Apple still does not have an official store in the country, forcing those who want its products to buy on resale platforms. .
Indonesia’s Industry Ministry spokesperson said imported phones of the iPhone 16 model, which was launched in September, could not be marketed in the country because Apple’s local unit had not met the requirement that 40% of the phones be They will be manufactured with local parts.
“iPhone 16 devices imported by registered importers cannot yet be marketed in the country,” ministry spokesperson Febri Hendri Antoni Arif said in a statement on Friday.
“Apple Indonesia has not fulfilled its investment commitment to obtain… certification.”
To reach that percentage, Apple must invest in Indonesia and source Indonesian materials to use in iPhone components, according to local media reports. Apple had previously pledged to invest 1.7 trillion rupiah in Indonesia, but had only invested 1.5 trillion as of earlier this month, according to Bloomberg.
Apple did not respond to The Guardian’s request for comment.
The ministry said the new Apple phones could be transported to Indonesia as long as they were not marketed.
It is estimated that only 9,000 units of the new model have entered the country, which has a population of around 280 million. Although those units entered the country legally, selling them in Indonesia would be illegal, Arif added.
Indonesia has used similar bans to encourage domestic production in the past, with mixed results. Apple previously warned that an import ban on 4,000 products, such as laptops and raw materials, that came into effect in March would result in a shortage of laptops in the country. Several companies have reduced their operations as a result of the ban. However, the restrictions imposed by the country for years on the import of minerals have led to the acceleration of its own battery sector.
The shipment share of Indonesia’s smartphone market in the second quarter of the year was dominated by China’s Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, as well as South Korea’s Samsung, according to Counterpoint Research.
The lack of presence in Indonesia is a missed opportunity for the company that enjoys considerable success elsewhere in Asia. There are 350 million active mobile phones in Indonesia, even more than the country’s current population. Bloomberg reported.
In April, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Indonesia as the tech giant explores ways to invest in Southeast Asia’s largest economy and diversify supply chains away from China.
He met with then-president Joko Widodo and his successor Prabowo Subianto for talks after the iPhone maker announced it would expand its developer academies in the country.