Chinese smartphones scrutiny: Modi government sends notice to Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and OnePlus

The Central government has sent notices to Chinese smartphone brands asking for details on the data and components used in the phones, as per a report by The Morning Context.

The Chinese smartphone brands include Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and OnePlus. The notice has been sent to the brands in order to find out if the smartphones sold by these companies are safe for Indian consumers. 

The Indian government after this is expected to send another notice that will seek testing of these smartphones. For testing of the smartphone the government has reached out to companies for confirmation, and has not yet received any response.

Last year, the government had banned 267 Chinese apps using the provision of Section 69A under the IT Act. These apps included TikTok, PUBG, Helo, UC Browser, Likee, Shareit, WeChat, Mi Community and more.

Ever since the ban of Chinese apps, Chinese smartphone brands have promoted their “Indianness” quite aggressively and have also upped their local production and investments in the country. As per reports, these four brands had promised India some investments  and they were not fulfilled. The new notices are said to be a sort of retaliation. 

Oppo, Vivo and its sub-brand iQoo had the biggest share of investment proposals that were not pushed through. However it is not yet clear why Xiami's name has been involved as it has fulfilled it investment promise.

A sper a report by ET, these notices are likely to be in regards to the government’s investigation into components used by Chinese telecom companies such as Huawei and ZTE. It is not just related to hardware but software details, especially pre-installed apps on Chinese smartphones may also come under scrutiny, the report added.