Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's iPhone ban, government officials have quadrupled iPhone sales in the first nine months of 2024, according to Vedomosti, a Russian business newspaper.
The outlet reported that the sales of Russian iPhones purchased by government officials reached 6,879,899 rubles compared to 1,642,166 for the same period in 2023.
Putin banned government officials from using iPhones in the spring of 2023 because of suspected security concerns and were told to switch to using phones running on the Android operating system, the Russian Aurora system or Chinese software.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian government for comment via a form on its website.
The order was issued by Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy chief of staff of the presidential executive office. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov neither confirmed nor denied the report at the time, although he said that Russian officials cannot use smartphones for work as they are "too vulnerable to handle classified information."
The government agencies Federal Security Service (FSB) and Federal Protective Service (FSO) imposed the ban after they reportedly uncovered a specific security concern regarding a "U.S. intelligence operation using a virus on Apple mobile devices," and found that several thousand phones were infected.
The investigation also reportedly discovered that the U.S. intelligence operation viruses were not only targeting Russian users but also foreign users who were using SIM cards registered to "diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia."
Government departments and companies that banned the purchase and use of Apple mobile phones included the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport and more, according to Oreanda News.
Although the ban was government-wide, some were reportedly exempt from complying with the rule and had their contracts continued because of "the impossibility of complying with the ban on the admission of software originating from foreign countries for the purpose of procurement for state and municipal needs."
Despite the rapid growth in government iPhone sales, it was not the most popular phone purchased and was outranked by South Korean Samsung devices, Chinese Realme and Xiaomi, and Google.
Russian retailers, including M.Video-Eldorado and mobile network operator MTS, have launched pre-sales of the latest model, the iPhone 16, with deliveries beginning next week, according to Reuters.
It follows Apple stopping sales in Russia in 2022 after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, and services including Apple Pay and Apple Maps were also limited.
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