Apple's $1 Billion Indonesia Investment Fails To Unlock iPhone 16 Sales Ban 44
Indonesia will continue to block iPhone 16 sales despite Apple's planned $1 billion AirTag factory investment, as the facility does not meet local content requirements for smartphones, Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita said on Wednesday. Indonesia banned iPhone 16 sales last year after Apple failed to meet rules requiring 35% locally-made components in smartphones sold domestically.
Does Indonesia want smartphones? (Score:5, Interesting)
Indonesia is a large country, but we have a global economy nowadays.
Requiring 35% locally-made components seems like an effective way to ban something.
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> How big of a market can that place be?
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Indonesia has a population of approximately 280 million people, making it the fourth most populous country in the world
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So about the size of legal US citizens.
Maybe Trump will follow suit?
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"If your country is not competitive in making something, make something else.".....from your fingers to el Bunko's brain.
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The AC in my BMW i3 (a budget car) broke. BMW wants almost $6000 to fix it. The car is nearly 8 years old now and I would like an upgraded battery (assume $10000) and the newest in-car computer.(maybe $2000) and I'd also like to replace some worn bits. If BMW would let me, I'd pay up to $20000 for these changes. But, they won't do the wo
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GDP is not indicative of a phone market. Everyone and his brother's dog has phone.
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"Everyone" is a number of people, market size is a number of dollars.
Because Americans are 16x richer than Indonesians, they buy 16x as many phones?
I would have assumed 2 or 3 phones would be enough for most people. What do you do with 10+?
Oh it turns out America doesn't even have twice as many smartphones as Indonesia [wikipedia.org]
United States 338.29M people 276.14M smartphones 81.6% penetration
Indonesia 275.50M people 187.70M smartphones 68.1% penetration
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Even that 5% overestimates the Indonesian smartphone market, which is around $11 billion per year. That compares with the worldwide market of over $550 billion. So, the Indonesian market is about 2% of the worldwide market.
Re: Does Indonesia want smartphones? (Score:3)
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Does any phone meet this criteria? (Score:5, Interesting)
They want 35% of the phone to be produced locally. Does any modern phone meet this criteria?
Re:Does any phone meet this criteria? (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-... [scmp.com]
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With falsified records, anything is possible.
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Manufacturers have had almost ten years to comply, all of the top manufacturers (Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo) have compliant devices with Indonesia's TKDN rules. It's really fine if Apple doesn't want to sell devices there, plenty of other choices.
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Maybe they just didn't think it was worth it. For our niche industry, the ongoing cost and nuisance of complying with Quebec's language laws is way, way more than we feel like dealing with, for barely a fraction of a percent of our english-speaking customers in that province. Regrettable.
That's one of the problems that will go away when you become the 54th state after DC, Puerto Rico and Greenland.
(Panama will just be a US territory for those keeping track)
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do an internet search for samsung or xiaomi indonesia factory.
"Malicious compliance" (Score:1)
Sell a special "iPhone 16-Indonesia" that comes with a locally-produced expensive part - maybe a bejewelled backside - and add that to the cost of the phone.
Wait, did they mean 35% by mass? OK, add a locally-produced steel brick welded to the back.
There are ways to get around the rules.
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Sell a special "iPhone 16-Indonesia" that comes with a locally-produced expensive part - maybe a bejewelled backside - and add that to the cost of the phone.
Wait, did they mean 35% by mass? OK, add a locally-produced steel brick welded to the back.
There are ways to get around the rules.
The way I see it, Apple already tried a reasonable compromise involving a huge investment in manufacturing products in that country. If that's not good enough, assuming Apple can't easily switch providers for components to meet that requirement, then I would argue that the best option for them is to ignore the new requirement, not sell the iPhone 16 in Indonesia, let the black market do its job, and also move as much manufacturing as possible out of Indonesia to countries that aren't playing these games as
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blackmarket iphones in indonesia are expensive ipod touches cause their imei # won't be on the whitelist.
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blackmarket iphones in indonesia are expensive ipod touches cause their imei # won't be on the whitelist.
Wow. IMEI whitelists. Just one more reason to walk away and not sell products there.
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Looking at this rationally, if you let one country, no matter how big, demand that a high percentage of components be made in that country, other countries will follow suit, and before long, you'll end up manufacturing your product in 195 different countries with 195 different bills of materials, economies of scale will fall apart, and phones will cost $10,000 each. That's not a reasonable outcome, and anything that moves the technology industry even one step down that slippery slope is highly undesirable.
Exactly THIS!
This is Nothing but a bald-faced Shakedown. And once started, other Countries are sure to Pile-On. Plus, the "Requirements" will quickly ratchet-up until it will be utterly non-viable.
This must stop NOW!!!
Apple needs to Abandon their AirTag Facility after stripping it bare, then filling every single pipe with Concrete; then stop selling iPhones in Indonesia.
Better a $1 Billion Bloody Nose now, than to allow this sort of economic Thuggery!
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It's based on total value (so materials + labor + assembly + software), so I guess Apple could do it. Like with the EU 'malicious compliance' that apple tried to do, that would of course last very briefly as authorities will haplily change the rules if a company makes a mockery of them, and courts tend to be very harsh on companies trying to be in contempt of the laws.
It's like you claiming some random stone in your possession was worth 3 million but you lost it so you wrote it off. That might theoretically
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It's based on total value (so materials + labor + assembly + software), so I guess Apple could do it. Like with the EU 'malicious compliance' that apple tried to do, that would of course last very briefly as authorities will haplily change the rules if a company makes a mockery of them, and courts tend to be very harsh on companies trying to be in contempt of the laws.
It's like you claiming some random stone in your possession was worth 3 million but you lost it so you wrote it off. That might theoretically work but when you get audited the authorities will annihilate you.
Apple built a fucking $1 Billion Facility there (bringing economic value to Indonesia), demonstrating a good faith effort at Compromise.
So exactly who is making a mockery of who?!?
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Maybe Apple should have read the law before doing that if that was the reason they paid the law. What you are saying is like trying to get out of 50k in income tax by saying you donated 10k to trump... like that's not how that works.
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Maybe Apple should have read the law before doing that if that was the reason they paid the law. What you are saying is like trying to get out of 50k in income tax by saying you donated 10k to trump... like that's not how that works.
I am certain that Apple Proposed their "In Kind" Compromise to the Authorities snd had Assurances. They're not exactly Newbies at the Global Logistics Game, ya know.
Then the Indonesians decided to Unilaterally Alter the Deal; figuring Apple wouldn't "walk" after they had committed a Billion Dollars snd a couple of years building that AirTag Facility.
Apple just made the mistake of assuming Indonesia was Negotiating in Good Faith; rather than just paying the Graft, like their less-Honorable Competitors obviou
All they need to do is wait a bit (Score:2)
In the meanwhile, they'll lose several hundred sales per month due to the ban, because most wealthy people in Indonesia probably buy their top-end electronics online or overseas anyways.
No smarthones for Indonesia (Score:2)
China - No problem
South Korea - No problem
US - Very likely
Japan - Possible
The ones that are claiming 35% in Indonesia are using creative definitions and accounting to give that appearance. Based on what I have heard from people doing businesses ther
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Unrealistic (Score:3)
I fully support Indonesia's stance to require more local input into products. Most USians want the same, and to be honest I want the same for my own country, too.
Being realistic about it, though, if every country required 35% of locally made components in their phones, then the major brands would need a factory in every single country. And that's just not going to happen. The supply-chain management would make the entire endevour unprofitable, resulting in China, the US, and maybe India getting phones, and the result of the world missing out. Technology progress would slow to a crawl.
So instead, we compromise. I make the phones, and you make the AirTags. Supply-chains work. Everybody wins.
Re: Unrealistic (Score:2)
In other news Indonesia joined BRICS (Score:2)