Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
03-01-2025
MEDAN: Winston, a medical doctor who lives and works in the capital of North Sumatra Province, is a self-proclaimed Apple fan.
Currently the proud owner of an iPhone 15, Winson had been looking forward to upgrading to the latest model, the iPhone 16, released in September.
Winston, however, has reluctantly given up on the idea since the Indonesian government banned sales of the iPhone 16 and the Google Pixel in late October, citing the tech giants’ failure to comply with the country’s Tingkat Komponen Dalam Negeri, or TKDN, policy, which requires phones to source at least 40 percent of their parts locally.
“Indonesian regulations about iPhones hit me once, and once was enough,” Winston, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told media.
While Winston could buy an iPhone overseas to bring back home, a relatively common practice that is legal as long as the phone is not resold, he has been burned by Indonesian regulations before.
“I bought the iPhone 11 in Singapore back in 2019 because it was much cheaper than in Indonesia, about $250 cheaper in fact. A round-trip ticket to Singapore at that time was only $120. You could fly to Singapore and back to Indonesia on the same day, so it was more cost-effective,” he said.
Winston used the phone without problems for about a year, until the Indonesian government in 2022 issued a regulation mandating that all phones be registered.
Despite registering his phone as required, the device suddenly lost signal one day and would not reconnect to the network, even with a different SIM card, he said.
“I went to a licensed Apple products reseller in Medan because I thought there was a problem with the phone, but they just said, ‘There is nothing we can do or suggest,’” he said.
Saddled with an unusable iPhone, Winston, who has had no problems with his current iPhone 15, which he bought through a licensed reseller, sold the device at a loss at a secondhand store during a subsequent visit to Singapore.
Indonesia, the fourth-most populous country with some 280 million people, is one of the world’s largest smartphone markets.
The archipelago was home to some 190 million smartphone users in 2022, according to market research firm Newzoo.
According to data from the Ministry of Industry, the country imported about 22,000 Google Pixel phones and 9,000 iPhone 16s in 2024, before authorities announced the bans.
Smartphone shipments to Indonesia were dominated by devices made by China’s Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, and South Korea’s Samsung.
Abdul Soleh, a lawyer in Medan, said the prohibitively expensive price of the iPhone 16 for many Indonesians might explain why there had not been more vocal opposition to the ban.
“It is a real shame, because iPhones are very popular and have a high user satisfaction rate in Indonesia,” Soleh told media.
“It would be better if the iPhone 16 could be sold in Indonesia because there are quite a lot of enthusiasts here.”
Khairul Mahalli, the head of the Chamber of Commerce in North Sumatra, said that while Indonesia’s TKDN policy is aimed at supporting local industry, it could have unintended consequences.
“As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a trade industry that works between countries, it is fine to protect our industries, but we also need to have checks and balances in place,” Mahalli told media. (Int’l News Desk)
