India recently tightening its control of quality clearances for electronic goods from China has affected smartphone brands. The new rule has slowed the new Apple iPhone models last month and even help up products from Chinese companies like Xiaomi.
According to a Reuters report, sources from within the industry has revealed the information. With the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) setting up new standards, the applications for the quality control agency, which used to be processed within 15 days, are now taking anywhere between this period and up to two or more months longer. This has severely delayed certain products arriving from overseas and disrupted companies’ schedules.
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BIS started delaying the approvals back in August 2020 for electronic devices that were made in China. This includes smartphones, smartwatches, and laptops, and likely arrives after the rising political tensions between India and China. For those unaware, a military clash back in June that left 20 Indian soldiers dead had caused an outrage and raised anti Chinese sentiments in India. Since then, the nation has tightened the rules for investments from China and have even banned hundreds of Chinese smartphone applications from Chinese companies like Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance.
It has banned an additional 43 more applications earlier this week as well. Apple India executives had called on BIS to speed up the approval process after the new iPhone 12 shipments were caught in the delays as well. The officials also assured that the Cupertino based giant will continue to expand its assembly operations in India, as per the sources. At the moment, it is still unclear how long the iPhone 12 application was actually delayed.
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