On July 8th, media reported, citing an internal memo from Microsoft, that starting from September, employees of Microsoft China will only be able to use Apple products for device verification in office equipment. This decision is equivalent to a "soft ban" on Android products.

The memo stated that this requirement is to ensure that hundreds of Chinese employees can normally use Microsoft Authenticator password manager and Identity Pass application. The Android devices used personally by employees are not affected.

Microsoft said that this is part of the company's "Secure Future Initiative." The decision was made because mobile phones with the Android system in the China region cannot use Google services such as the Play Store, which will affect the efficiency of employees. According to the deployment, all employees using the Android system will receive an iPhone 15, including the Hong Kong region of China.

A Microsoft spokesperson posted on Quartz, saying that currently, Microsoft's Authenticator and Identity Pass applications have officially landed in the Apple and Google Play stores. However, due to the unavailability of Google Mobile Services in the region, Microsoft hopes to provide employees with access to these necessary work applications, such as iOS devices.

Although Microsoft did not disclose how many employees it has in China, the media reported that since 1992, Microsoft has been conducting business in China. Microsoft itself claims: "Its most complete subsidiary and the largest R&D center outside the United States are in China," and this R&D center alone has more than 6,000 engineers and scientists.

It is worth noting that the media reported that in May 2024, Microsoft asked about 800 local employees to consider moving to other countries, including the United States. At the same time, Microsoft enhanced the security key of the product. Compared with passwords and conventional identity verification, the key means that applications can use the iPhone's Face ID for biometric identity verification, which is more secure.

Public data shows that over the past year, Apple's position in the Chinese smartphone market has risen and fallen. The latest report shows that although iPhone sales increased by 0.9% year-on-year, as of the end of May, the company's share in the Chinese smartphone market was only 11%.

UBS analyst David Vogt said this month that although the market has always believed that historical data is retrospective and will not affect Apple's development prospects in China next year, we have noticed that the development of Huawei and other Chinese mobile phones has actually restricted the growth of iPhone shares.

As of the time of writing, neither Microsoft nor Apple has made any public comments on this matter.