OREANDA-NEWS  According to the results of the first nine months of this year, the volume of public purchases of iPhone smartphones increased fourfold compared to the same period a year earlier, to 6.88 million rubles. Most of the contracts were signed by companies with state participation. Vedomosti writes about this with reference to a representative of the Tenderplan bidding site.

In June 2023, Russian government authorities began to impose a ban on the use of Apple mobile devices. The reason was a warning from the Federal Security Service (FSB) about the possibility of introducing US intelligence viruses into smartphones. The special service found such programs on the devices of employees of diplomatic agencies in a number of countries.

The list of companies and departments that began to prohibit their employees from using familiar equipment included the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, Rostec and many others.

As explained in the "Tenderplan", in 2024, some contracts were held with the justification of "the impossibility of complying with the ban on the admission of software originating from foreign countries for the purpose of procurement for state and municipal needs." In particular, in one of the purchases, the need for the iPhone 13 was explained by the presence of the Voice Over voicing program, which allows blind and visually impaired citizens to use the main functions of the device, and teachers to teach them.

Nevertheless, iPhone devices account for a small proportion of the total volume of government purchases of smartphones. The leadership is held by South Korean Samsung devices (41.3 million rubles) and Chinese Realme and Xiaomi (16.2 million and 10.9 million rubles, respectively). Government purchases of smartphones from Google have almost halved, to 1.9 million rubles, but this is still more than the iPhone.

In July, it was reported that amid supply difficulties and rising prices, Apple smartphones dropped out of the top five most popular in Russia, losing to Redmi, Tecno, Realme, Infinix and Samsung.