Why the iPhone 6S and 7 are yet to be released in Indonesia
Nationalism is taking a bite out of Apple, with strict regulations preventing the company from selling its latest phones
Apple is battling to gain a foothold in Indonesia after nationalistic regulations hit the US tech giant’s efforts to compete in the booming emerging market against Samsung and other rivals.
The iPhone 6S and 7 are yet to be released in Southeast Asia’s top economy as Apple struggles to fulfil requirements that phone makers must have 20 per cent “local content” for 4G handsets sold in the country.
South Korea’s Samsung has been able to meet the demands and gain a share of the market in Indonesia – a country of 255 million people, with an army of young consumers – more than 25 times bigger than Apple.
Officials say the regulations that came into force this year are aimed at supporting the growth of the local manufacturing industry, which lags behind its Asian peers, and plan to raise the local content requirement to 30 per cent at the start of next year.
But to critics, it is just the latest example of misguided nationalistic rules that hamper rather than help business in Indonesia, which is ranked 109th on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.