Apple pulls 39,000 games from the iOS store in China
Apple has reportedly pulled tens of thousands of games from its Chinese iOS store, alongside 46,000 other apps.
These 86,000 apps hit some of the biggest and most well known apps on the Chinese market, with Reuters reporting that just 74 of the 1,500 most popular paid apps are left standing. Chinese laws have stipulated that everything sold on mobile app stores needs to go through one of their regulators, but Apple had always exploited various loopholes to get around it.
American companies have always had to be careful when doing business in China. As China grew to rapidly become one of the world’s biggest economic powerhouses, its ability to enforce its own strict and highly specific regulation has grown with it.
It may be that China, having grown tired of the numerous apps which Apple provided without regulation, confronted Apple to put an end to it once and for all. It’s not known whether these apps were simply unregulated, or if Apple was somehow violating other Chinese rules.
With so many apps pulled, it’s likely that something happened to encourage Apple to fall in line and begin taking action to address the many thousands of apps that were being sold in the country through the Apple App Store.
Given how many Apple products are at least partially manufactured in China, it’s likely that Apple can’t afford to get on the Chinese government’s bad side.
