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Apple said it has removed mobile communications apps Meta WhatsApp and Threads from its online store in China, under the direction of the country’s internet regulator.
The iPhone maker said Friday that China’s Cyberspace Administration had ordered the removal of apps from Apple’s App Store in the country due to “national security concerns.”
“We are obligated to follow the laws of the countries in which we operate, even if we disagree,” Apple said. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WhatsApp has over 2 billion monthly active users worldwide. Threads, a Twitter-like offshoot of photo and video platform Instagram, was the fourth most downloaded service in the world’s app stores in December, according to Appfigures.
It’s unclear exactly when WhatsApp was removed from the Apple Store in China, but it was not available on Friday. Another Meta communications platform, Messenger, was still available on the App Store in China, as were the main apps Facebook and Instagram.
Chinese users were previously able to access some major Western social media platforms that were officially blocked in the country, but were still available in domestic app stores. Apple’s removal of apps closes this gap on iPhones, although users can still download the apps from other countries’ App Stores and use them through virtual private networks.
The delistings came after China’s powerful internet regulator and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology set an April 1 deadline for apps operating in China to officially register with the government, said Rich Bishop, general manager of AppInChina, a leading international app publisher in China. the country.
Bishop said Apple already imposed the deposit requirement for Chinese developer accounts and was required to do so for international services.
“Once Apple starts enforcing it, hundreds of thousands of apps will be removed because very few of them got an app filing,” Bishop said.
The filing requires developers to set up a local company or use a local publisher and host the app’s back end in China, said Bishop, who predicted that most companies would eventually run a second version of their applications in China.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the news of the apps’ removal.
The move comes as the US Congress prepares to vote on Saturday on a bill to ban the short video app TikTok, owned by ByteDance, if it is not handed over to a non-Chinese owner.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg went to great lengths a decade ago to overturn China’s ban on Facebook, learning Mandarin to speak to President Xi Jinping and taking his team on a high-profile jog through Beijing , heavily polluted. But the company ultimately failed to obtain permission to operate locally.
Apple has suffered a decline in smartphone sales in China, where it faces increased competition from Huawei in the high-end segment of the market and a crackdown on the use of its devices by government employees.
iPhone sales plunged 24 percent in the first six weeks of the year, according to a report from Counterpoint Research.
Apple has offered rare discounts to support demand, and Chief Executive Tim Cook has made several trips to China since pandemic restrictions were eased, visiting Apple suppliers, managers and employees. Last month, Cook opened Apple’s largest store in Asia in Shanghai, demonstrating the brand’s commitment to the market despite falling sales.
Cook pioneered the shift of Apple’s supply chain from the United States to China, establishing manufacturing of its iPhones, AirPods, Macs and iPads in the country. Apple is now trying to diversify its supply chain, by relocating part of its production to countries like India.
Cook also visited Vietnam and Indonesia last week to discuss possible production expansion.