Apple invests $100 million to help Indonesia lift iPhone 16 ban

Apple is proposing to invest $100 million in Indonesia, nearly 10 times the company's previous investment plan, to convince the country's government to lift the iPhone 16 ban, according to Bloomberg.

According to the source, after Apple submitted the proposal, the Indonesian Ministry of Industry asked the company to adjust its plan to focus more on domestic smartphone research and development.

Last month, Indonesia's Industry Ministry banned the sale of the iPhone 16 for failing to meet the 40% local content requirement for phones and tablets.

Indonesia bans Apple from selling iPhone 16 domestically due to failure to meet investment and local content requirements

After the initial investment proposal of nearly $10 million, the ministry asked Apple’s senior executives to meet with Prime Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita. However, after flying to Jakarta, the company officials only met with the Minister of Industry.

According to Indonesia, Apple has invested only 1.5 trillion rupiah ($95 million) through its developer academies, falling short of its commitment of 1.7 trillion rupiah. The Southeast Asian country has also banned Google Pixel for similar reasons.

During former President Joko Widodo's tenure, Indonesia also banned ByteDance's TikTok to protect its retail industry from Chinese goods.

The short-video app eventually invested $1.5 billion in a joint venture with GoTo's e-commerce platform Tokopedia.

Indonesia is taking drastic measures to boost domestic manufacturing. The new administration of President Prabowo Subianto is continuing the policies of his predecessor, Joko Widodo, to pressure international companies to invest more extensively.

Investing heavily in Indonesia gives Apple the opportunity to reach more than 278 million consumers, more than half of whom are under 44 and tend to be tech-savvy.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/apple-dau-tu-100-trieu-usd-de-indonesia-do-lenh-cam-iphone-16-294356.html