Alphabet Inc. said Indonesia has banned the sale of Pixel phones Google did not meet domestic content requirements.
Trading is illegal Google Pixel Febri Hendri Industry Ministry spokesman Antoni Arief said at a press conference on Thursday that the phones are in Indonesia, although an estimated 22,000 have entered the country this year through personal shipments or luggage. portable.
That followed an earlier move by the government to block the sale iPhone 16 equipment in Southeast Asia’s largest economy later Apple Inc. failed to fulfill its investment commitments. Arief said the Cupertino, California-based company has sent a letter requesting to meet with Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita to discuss the ban, although no specific date has been set.
“Local content regulation and related policies are in place to bring fairness to all investors investing in Indonesia, while creating added value and deepening than the industry structure here”.
The government has threatened to take action against online and physical stores caught selling the said phones, and deactivate their IMEI identification numbers so that the devices cannot be registered with the local telecommunications provider. Phones purchased abroad are allowed for personal use as long as the owner declares them upon entry – and pays hefty fees.
The move signals that Indonesia is ready to double down on restrictive policies against foreign businesses as a means to secure greater investment. Smartphone and tablet manufacturers are required to meet a domestic content requirement of up to 40% depending on the scale of their operations in the country. Companies can comply by manufacturing equipment, developing firmware or investing in innovation in Indonesia.
Apple The Ministry of Industry said it has implemented a roadmap to establish domestic development academies, although its investment is only 1.5 trillion rupiah ($95 million), lower than the committed 1.7 billion. trillion rupiah. Rival audio makers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Xiaomi Corp. established local factories.
Indonesia’s $1 trillion economy is a potential growth market with more than 350 million active mobile phones – more than the country’s population of 270 million, according to government data. Both Google and Apple did not make it into the top five smartphone brands in the country last year.
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