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Apple missing from China’s list of 26 registered app stores after requirement to submit information to government

  • The list of registered app stores in the country includes Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Huawei and even Samsung, but not the mainland’s fourth-largest smartphone brand
  • A new regulation requiring app store operators to submit business details to the government has caused concern among developers

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Apple’s App Store is not among the first batch of 26 app distribution platforms that have registered under a new regulation in China, although most of its major rivals made the list. Photo: Bloomberg
Tracy Quin Shanghai
China has published the country’s first batch of 26 mobile app stores that have submitted business details to regulators, but Apple’s app store is absent from the list.
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The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s top internet regulator, published the list of properly registered “app distribution platforms” on its website on Wednesday. They include platforms run by tech giants Xiaomi, Samsung Electronics, Tencent Holdings, Baidu, Oppo, Vivo and Huawei Technologies. Apple, the fourth-largest smartphone brand in China by shipments in the second quarter, is conspicuously absent.
The other registered platforms include Alipay, the payment platform run by Ant Group, ZTE, Coolpad, Nubia and Lenovo.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The CAC published a regulation in August 2022 asking app distribution platforms – covering app stores and mini program platforms like WeChat – to submit certain information to the authority for “registration”. App stores have a duty to police apps in their stores, according to the regulation, and must refuse to upload apps that “contain illegal or bad information”.
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