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One of the world’s largest smartphone manufacturers, Apple, has signed an agreement with Indonesia to invest $1 billion in the southeast Asian nation in a bid to end the ban on iPhone sales in the country. The agreement was announced by Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita in a media briefing in Jakarta on Wednesday, as reported by Bloomberg Technoz. The process to issue a sale permit to Apple will begin, which will allow the company to sell its latest iPhone 16 series models in Indonesia.
Indonesian government had refused to issue a sale permit to Apple in October. The country’s government had cited Apple’s failure to comply with domestic manufacturing requirements for smartphones and tablets. Apple had then promised to invest $1 billion in Indonesia, which President Prabowo Subianto had asked his ministers to accept.
The ban was upheld by Indonesia’s Industry Ministry in January as it sought better terms to the agreement. Apple agreeing to the country’s terms will help Indonesia in attracting local manufacturing and boosting investments by a foreign company. The government had previously said that Apple had invested only about $95 million in Indonesia.
The agreement also comes at an opportune time for Prabowo, according to Bloomberg. The optics of a US tech giant yielding to his administration could be used to boost his domestic standing, which has taken a hit following multiple policy U-turns that have generated confusion. On top of that, his plan for sweeping spending cuts that threatened jobs and scholarships triggered days of protests last week.
For Apple, the deal gives it access to Indonesia’s massive consumer market at a time when sales in China have slowed. Though Apple ranks outside the top five smartphone brands in Indonesia, the country’s population of 278 million people — more than half of whom are under the age of 44 and tech-savvy — is too good an opportunity to miss.
The agreement includes the establishment of a plant on the island of Batam to produce AirTags, a device that allows users to track their luggage, pets or other belongings, Bloomberg Technoz cited the minister as saying. Apple is bringing on board one of its significant suppliers, Luxshare Precision Industry Co., to operate the plant.

The price of bitcoin fell below $90,000 and other cryptocurrencies saw large drops Tuesday morning, erasing some of the gains digital assets have made since President Donald Trump took office on a pro-crypto agenda. Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, was trading at about $89,000 as the U.S. stock market opened. That’s down from about $106,000, which was the price around Trump’s inauguration. The decline in bitcoin and other crypto assets accelerated after a report showed a bigger-than-expected drop in consumer confidence for this month.
Cryptocurrency is highly volatile, and prices can change rapidly. Even with Tuesday’s drop, bitcoin is still up significantly since Trump won last year’s election. Supporters said the price drops represent a good investment opportunity.
“Buy the dips!!!” Eric Trump, the president’s son, said on the social media platform X. He replaced the letter B with the symbol for bitcoin.
It’s been a mixed bag for the cryptocurrency industry in recent weeks. The president and pro-crypto members of Congress have promised to usher in a golden age for the industry and pledged quick action to craft friendly regulations. And in recent weeks, regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission have signaled plans to drop enforcement actions against key industry players, like Coinbase and Robinhood.
But a large hack of a major cryptocurrency exchange — one of the biggest thefts of all time — and a major scandal involving the president of Argentina and a meme coin have highlighted some of the vulnerabilities in a relatively still nascent industry.
Last week the Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit announced it was a victim of a sophisticated hack that stole about $1.5 billion worth of digital currency. A number of security researchers believe North Korea, which authorities have blamed for several other major crypto hacks, was behind the theft.
Argentine President Javier Milei is facing a corruption probe into his promotion of a meme coin, called LIBRA, whose price soared then quickly crashed after Milei posted about it on X. Milei has distanced himself from the meme coin and denied any wrongdoing.
Meme coins are a highly speculative form of cryptocurrency that are mostly minted as jokes and have no intrinsic value but can sometimes soar in price.
One of the crypto developers involved in the LIBRA coin said meme coins are essentially a rigged game that benefits a small group of people at the expense of retail investors in a recent interview with an independent journalist.
That developer, Hayden Davis, also revealed he was involved in the launch of First Lady Melania Trump’s meme coin just before her husband took office. The Melania meme coin was trading at about 90 cents on Tuesday, down from more than $13 when it first launched. The president also helped launch a meme coin just before he took office that’s seen a similar price trajectory.
Solana, a major cryptocurrency that’s a key player in the meme coin ecosystem, has seen its price roughly cut in half since Trump’s inauguration.