William Gallagher
Indonesia's government has now granted Apple most of the certificates needed for the iPhone 16 ban to be lifted, but Apple still can't resume sales just yet.
As reported at the end of February 2025, Indonesia has now settled its dispute with Apple. The iPhone 16 will not, however, go back on sale immediately.
According to Reuters, that's because what has happened is that Apple has been granted the local content certificates that were Indonesia's main barrier to selling the iPhone 16. It's to do with the local content quota, which requires between 35% and 40% of the device's components to be made in Indonesia.
It's not clear that this is now happening, as it appears Apple has only been considering moving iPhone manufacturing to the country. However, the company was previously granted an exemption because of its development investments in Indonesia, and those appear to be expanding.
Indonesia ministry spokesperson Febri Hendri Antoni Arief said only that the negotiations with Apple had been "tricky."
Whatever the mix of manufacturing and development, Apple has now formally been granted the local content certificates for 20 Apple products. These are 11 iPhone models, including the iPhone 16, plus 9 iPads.
However, before Apple can resume sales, it still needs to get further permits. These are from Indonesia's trade ministry, plus the communications and digital ministry.
It's not known how long these will take, nor has it been stated whether they will be granted. Neither Apple nor representatives from the Indonesian government have commented.
The now five-month-long bank on the sales of the iPhone 16, began in October 2024, shortly after the range was launched. At the time, Apple had fallen short of its previous investment commitment to the country, and its token $10 million offer was rejected by the Indonesian government.
Over these months, the negotiations first saw Apple upping its investment offer to $100 million, and then seemingly finally to $1 billion.
That billion dollar offer was both accepted by Indonesia and described as "not enough." That's because while it included manufacturing in the country, it was for producing AirTags rather than components for the iPhone.
There's been no report of that changing. However, even before the ban, Indonesia had extracted a promise from Tim Cook to investigate manufacturing in the country.
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3 Comments
Apple should've just started shutting down Apple Stores in Indonesia, and giving the impression of pulling out of Indonesia completely (while announcing to increase investments in surrounding countries), and I'd bet that Indonesia would have suddenly found it in their heart to permit iPhone 16 sales. ;-)
China tried the same "we can't approve sales" trick with the iPhone 4 (if I recall correctly), and relented after Steve Jobs embarassed them by continually listing how many of those iPhones were operating in China, despite not being on sale ;-)
Indonesia is just being greedy, and they need to face the reality of losing it all....