Roger Fingas
The Egyptian government has been talking with Apple about the prospect of implementing a more direct corporate presence, according to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli.
"I think Egypt is a big market and attractive for Apple to exist in directly," Madbouli said in a CNBC interview. "Apple has been in Egypt but through indirect agents, suppliers... But really, we discussed yesterday [with Apple], the idea really [is] to have Apple be in Egypt to be one of its industrial hubs and a destination to serve the whole [Middle East] region."
The talks could be connected to a row with the country's Competition Authority, which on Dec. 11 issued a 60-day deadline to fix "unfair restrictions" affecting iPhone sales. Apple currently blocks its Middle Eastern distributor from selling to local Egyptian distributors, something the government says can make iPhones as much as 50 percent more expensive in Egypt than elsewhere in the Middle East.
The soaring cost of iPhones is believed to be having ramifications for Apple across the globe, but especially in China, where poor iPhone sales were cited as the main cause of a $5 billion revenue shortfall in the December quarter. Local brands like Huawei and Xiaomi offer competitive phones selling for hundreds of dollars less.
Madbouli added that while speaking with Apple representatives at the World Economic Forum in Davos — which CEO Tim Cook is visiting as well — he raised the idea of collaborating on education reforms in his country, particularly introducing more technology.
Cook is known to have met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at Davos, and had dinner with the leaders of Brazil, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Microsoft.
William Gallagher
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11 Comments
Perhaps Apple needs to create a new third world brand with a different name. An “affordable” high quality phone to compete with others but without sullying the Apple iPhone brand. Owned by Apple but perhaps even HQ’d in India. A semi-autonomous company that is informed by Apple’s ethic but not saddled by it. Everyone would “know” it’s an Apple phone; the halo effect, but it’s not an iPhone.
“Apple currently blocks its Middle Eastern distributor from selling to local Egyptian distributors, something the government says can make iPhones as much as 50 percent more expensive in Egypt than elsewhere in the Middle East.”
Where are iPhones sold in the Middle East 50% cheaper than Egypt? Are they talking about Israel? And, Saudi Arabia?
I can’t imagine iPhones are sold in enough quantity to establish direct relationships elsewhere...
Also, I vaguely remember countries governments requiring access to iPhone communications, which obviously Apple wasn’t willing to do, so they took a hands off approach.
This guy sounds like he's in a bubble, where he loves Apple and think it'd be cool for them to come do business in Egypt. I haven't heard Egypt is big in tech nor manufacturing, but I heard about their horrible track record on human rights violations.
It's pretty strange that it took Target this long to finally support Apple Pay in their Stores!!!! Target has Supported Apple Pay since day 1 for Online Shopping. So it's good see see them finally cave. Same goes for Taco Bell and Jack on the box. The more places the better. Wal-Mart is going to be the last holdout. They are going to stick with their QR codes for as long as they can.
It's a dumb idea! What's Apple going to run on that Android? it can't be iOS. A watch is one thing. you're not normally running a OS on it. If you were, and running Android, running under some other name and still using Android, no big deal, you can hide that.