Apple (AAPL.O) employees met with Chinese officials in recent months to raise concerns over new regulations that would prevent the American tech giant from distributing several international apps now available on its app store in the nation.
According to the article, which cited persons knowledgeable about the situation, the officials instructed Apple to carefully enforce the regulations against unregistered foreign apps.
Reuters’ request for comment from Apple did not respond immediately.
Over the last several years, Beijing has increased its smartphone and mobile app usage monitoring. As a result, both mobile app shops and mobile applications are now required to provide the government with business information.
Apple’s App Store was not included on the list of mobile app shops that were named by China’s internet authority on Wednesday, which was a hint that the new regulations were starting to be enforced.
Apple has not specified how its Chinese app store would adhere to Beijing’s new regulations. According to experts, if Apple complies, tens of thousands of apps may be withdrawn from its app store in China.
According to WSJ, Apple staff members were worried about how the regulations would be applied and how it would impact its users.