Even in mainland China, where iOS does have a large amount of changes to comply with local regulations, Apple does not pre-install any apps from anyone.
China doesn't require pre-installed apps but the Chinese government require all data processing and storage to be conducted within China with complete source code access.
India chose to back off on data sovereignty [0] because it would have had a side effect of making Indian IT Offshoring less competitive plus to help make negotiating a US-India BTA easier [1].
I don't think there is any reason to assume they would allow forced code execution just because they allow data residency for mainland accounts. And unfortunately, China is likely a much larger and more profitable consumer market than India - presumably they can still export phones produced inside India without this.
alephnerd|3 months ago
India chose to back off on data sovereignty [0] because it would have had a side effect of making Indian IT Offshoring less competitive plus to help make negotiating a US-India BTA easier [1].
[0] - https://verfassungsblog.de/cross-border-data-flows-and-india...
[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-25/us-seeks-...
browningstreet|3 months ago
So does a security backdoor in every mobile device used by said Indian offshoring staff.
iancarroll|3 months ago
tacker2000|3 months ago
bilbo0s|3 months ago
That's because China has no regulation obliging them to do so.
China takes the other, more comprehensive, route to privacy invasion. Sucking up every bit of data at the router.
iancarroll|3 months ago