Almost 7 million rubles were spent on government purchases of iPhones in 2024

According to the newspaper, the largest iPhone purchase in 2024, worth more than 3 million rubles, was made by St. Petersburg Teploenergo. The Ugra television company made two purchases worth 382.5 thousand rubles and 840 thousand rubles, one for 650 thousand rubles – the IT Park technology park in Tatarstan, another for 830 thousand rubles – Aeroexpress, another for 517 thousand rubles – the State Kremlin Palace.

Russian government agencies began banning officials from using iPhones after the FSB and FSO reported in June 2023 that they had discovered an “intelligence campaign” by US intelligence agencies using a virus on smartphones. from Apple. The FSB then reported that several thousand iPhones were infected.

Commenting on this information, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said that employees of the presidential administration are prohibited from using Apple smartphones for official purposes.

Despite the ban, officials of regional administrations “actively use” iPhones, Denis Kuskov, general director of the TelecomDaily agency, told Vedomosti. He highlighted that Apple smartphones are used for personal purposes even by those who are officially prohibited from doing so.

The leader in government procurement in 2024 was Samsung smartphones: more than three quarters were purchased in the amount of 41.3 million rubles, Vedomosti wrote. According to them, Samsung’s public procurement volume compared to the same period in 2023 increased by 5.5 times.