The Indonesian government has said that it expects its iPhone 16 ban to be lifted “within one or two weeks,” but has not explained the basis for this.
The country’s investment minister issued only a rather strangely-worded and somewhat contradictory comment which implied that a deal was close …
The story so far
The governments of populous countries are getting increasingly savvy about seeking a quid pro quo for giving Apple access to their markets, demanding inward investment in return.
Indonesia started out with a relatively modest demand for Apple to invest $109M in a developer academy there, with a further $10M manufacturing spend. However, when this target wasn’t quite hit, the government upped the ante dramatically. It banned the iPhone 16 from sale, and demanded a far larger investment.
Apple initially offered $100M, but the government said that wasn’t enough. It then said it wanted a billion dollar manufacturing spend in the country. We heard last month that Apple had agreed to this, and it was subsequently revealed that this would take the form of large-scale AirTag manufacturing.
However, the Indonesian government bizarrely rejected this offer, saying that only the manufacture of iPhone components would count.
iPhone 16 ban could end in 1-2 weeks
Bloomberg today features an interview with Indonesia’s investment minister Rosan Roeslani saying that the government expects the issue to be resolved very shortly.
“I strongly believe it will resolve very, very soon,” Roeslani said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Davos on Tuesday. “Hopefully within one or two weeks this issue can be resolved.”
However, no explanation was provided as to what drives this optimism. Instead Roeslani made only a very vague statement:
“The way they calculate it is different I think,” Roeslani said, referring to the local content requirement. “Now they find a solution on that one, so hopefully they accept the discrepancies so we can have the iPhone 16 sold in Indonesia.”
“Now they find a solution” seems to indicate that Apple has made a fresh offer, while “hopefully they accept the discrepancies” doesn’t.
It’s clear that the matter will be resolved, because both sides need that to happen, but we’re currently none the wiser about how this will happen.
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