Taiwan declared the big manufacturer of smartphones Xiaomi as an enemy of the people. The company, which is based in China, is accused of espionage activities. Such technical giants like Asus, Acer, HTC, would probably react gladly to the actions of the authorities in Taiwan, who decided to reduce the spread of goods Xiaomi. At the moment, only the government staff is banned to purchase them. The opportunity to use smartphone for spy purposes is the official reason for the ban.
Xiaomi has been the largest manufacturer of mobile phones in China so far, at the moment its volume of sales in China is much bigger than the volume of not only local competitors, but also the well-known giant Apple. As for Taiwan, the famous Acer, Asus and HTC work there and periodically try to enter the common world market. In recent years, these brands, especially HTC, got a wave of profit after years of losses, but if Xiaomi gains popularity, these companies can expect serious recessions once again. Currently Chinese smart phones rank the 5th place in the overall ranking in sales of mobile devices in Taiwan.
Representatives of Xiaomi did not contradict the authorities openly, however, they noted that the operating system of their company easily can block all attempts to steal or transfer personal data, if the owner of the smartphone doesn’t agree to these actions on their own. However, the government of the state is not sure that gadgets are protected so well. They think that the threat can come not from ordinary hackers but from spyware hired by PRC authorities. Thus, Xiaomi can be equipped with specially designed vulnerability. It is worth mentioning that according to the national security of Taiwan, for the first six months they experienced about 30 thousand hacking attempts, and a huge number of IP-addresses of hackers come from China.