- In an interview with Chinese state TV this week, Huawei CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei admitted to buying Apple iPhones.
- Ren was addressing calls for an Apple boycott in China after Huawei was blacklisted by the US, according to The South China Morning Post.
- Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in December, was carrying a stash of Apple products at the time she was detained.
- For more, go to Business Insider SA.
As America wages war on his company, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei has made an unlikely intervention in support of one of his biggest rivals. In an interview with Chinese state TV on Tuesday, Ren confirmed he is a fan of Apple.
"iPhone has a good ecosystem and when my family are abroad, I still buy them iPhones, so one can't narrowly think love for Huawei should mean loving Huawei phones," Ren said, according to The South China Morning Post.
The Post said Ren was seeking to calm a retaliatory movement in China against Apple. Social media users are calling for a boycott of the iPhone maker after Huawei was blacklisted by the Trump administration.
A Huawei spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
We already know the Huawei dynasty has a soft spot for Apple. Bloomberg reported in March that Huawei CFO - and Ren's daughter - Meng Wanzhou was carrying a bunch of Apple devices when she was arrested in Canada in December.
These included an iPhone 7 Plus, a MacBook Air, and an iPad Pro, in addition to a Huawei Mate 20 RS phone featuring a Porsche design, Bloomberg reported, citing court documents.
Some Huawei employees have been punished for using Apple products in the past. Earlier this year, two workers were demoted and saw their pay cut by around $700 (R10,000) after they tweeted out from the company's account using an iPhone. The tweet, which was a New Year's greeting, "Happy #2019," was marked "via Twitter for iPhone."
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