After a week in which Turks were encouraged to engage in PR stunts like smashing, burning, and shooting their iPhones, and as the lira took a nose dive of 16% against the dollar after President Trump authorized doubling tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey, it doesn’t appear these efforts have done much to significantly dent iPhone sales in Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan encouraged Turks to boycott Apple (AAPL) and other US electronic products this week: “If they have iPhone, there is Samsung on the other side. And we have our Venus and Vestel. We are going to produce enough for ourselves. We have to serve better quality goods than we are importing from them,” he urged in a Tuesday speech.
But despite Turkish media giving the boycott extensive coverage and a spate of YouTube videos showing citizens burning dollar bills and destroying Apple’s iPhones, it appears Turks are still buying the US product. Or at least we could say there’s nothing substantive to prove the boycott is having the desired impact.
In a Saturday speech Erdogan declared his country would not be cowed by Washington: “We will not surrender to those who present themselves as a strategic partner while at the same time trying to make us a strategic target,” he said at a congress of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The two NATO allies are now in open economic war after Turkey has refused demands from the White House that it release American pastor Andrew Brunson, which the BBC has noted has become “a pawn in a personal feud” that’s now spiraled out of control.
Erdogan accused Washington of conducting an “economic coup” against Turkey. He repeated the theme on Saturday, saying “Some people threaten us with economy, sanctions, foreign currency exchange rates, interest rates and inflation. We know your shenanigans and we will defy you.”
