Iran warns of punitive actions on Samsung Elec for its phone service restriction

[Source: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Twitter]

Tehran threatened to ban entry of Samsung Electronics employees and registration of mobile phones in Samsung label in protest to the Korean company’s decision to restrict Iranian access to its smartphone service.

“The list of measures against Samsung is ready,” said Mohammad Jafar Na’nakar, head of the legal department at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Iran, reported Iran’s state-run Press TV on Tuesday (local time).

The announcement came after the news that Samsung Electronics decided to stop the service of its Galaxy Store app in Iran.

Currently, only free-of-charge apps are available on the service, and paid apps not. Some say free apps also will likely become unavailable from next month, and local media began to speculate Samsung Electronics will stop shipping its smartphones to the country.

The world’s biggest smartphone maker would be acting in line with U.S.’s renewed sanctions on Iran from August 2018.

Na’nakar said the ministry demanded Samsung to withdraw the restriction on app sales to Iranian users, adding “the reality is that if this is not reconsidered, there are legal tools on our side that would enable us to counter this measure.”

He noted Samsung’s planned restrictions on Iranians’ access to Galaxy Store starting March would cause massive difficulties to app developers and businesses in Iran, warning the country could consider “more cooperation with alternative Chinese companies like Huawei and Xiaomi”.

Samsung Electronics claims nearly half of the Iranian smartphone market, estimated to reach 10 million units a year. The company reportedly has already stopped assembling phones at local lines since late last year upon the U.S. sanctions on parts imports from the country.

Separately, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said via Twitter last Friday, “Some foreign companies, which have left Iran in recent years and months submitting to the U.S. bullying, should know that returning to the Iranian market will be very difficult,” with an attached photo of workers removing a banner of Samsung in Iran.

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