According to the President of Iran’s ICT Association Council, during an unofficial visit, one of Apple’s senior managers has informed them that Apple wants to take legal action against the use of its logo in Iran.
Despite the high prices and the low value of Iranian currency, Apple products have a big share in Iran’s computer and mobile market. This has led to a large number of fake Apple retail stores in Iran, and some companies which claim to be the official distributor.
Iran’s ICT Council of the Association reported that Mohammareza Talaei, President of the council, had some negotiations with Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Vodafone, Gemalto and SAP in Gitex exhibition during a conference on investment opportunities in Iran’s ICT industry. Talaei said that Patrick Beyrouti, Deputy General Manager of ABM, the authorized distributor of Apple in the Middle East, had meetings with Iranians saying that Apple has received many requests from Iranian companies which want to become a representative of Apple.
“According to Patrick Beyrouti, Apple has no official representative in Iran and wants to legally pursuit its use of logo and brand in Iran,” said Talaei.
Talaei mentioned that right now Iranians are facing restrictions to submit and distribute their applications on the App Store. Adding that if Apple enters Iran, many Iranian/Islamic apps could be developed for their operating system.
Talaei said IBM announced its willingness to invest in Iran. German executives of Vodafone were also keen to start negotiations with Iranian mobile operators, according to Talaei.
“We expect to witness the prosperity of domestic firms and the successful presence of well-known companies in Iran”. He added that the aim of these negotiations is not to only bring the foreign products to Iran, but that they seek to bring the technical knowledge to better support the domestic companies.
Leave a Reply