Xiaomi is not yet officially present in all countries, but they have not yet taken such a drastic step against black imports. In some prohibited regions, Xiaomi/Redmi/Poco phones will now be blocked or rendered inoperable.
"Xiaomi's policy does not allow the product to be sold or shipped in the territory where you tried to activate it. Please contact the retailer directly for more information."
Xiaomi does not restrict the operation of its phones where it does not have an official branch or presence. This has been the case here and in many other countries like America. But there are exceptions where it is prohibited to sell Xiaomi products:
- Cuba
- Iran
- Syria
- North Korea
- Sudan
- Crimea
So far, we have not heard of any cases of Xiaomi blocking its phones in these prohibited regions, until now. This morning, news broke on Reddit that there have been more than 20 cases reported in Cuba of phones being blocked, as shown above. The odd thing is that not all phones have been blocked, there are exceptions, for which there is no adequate response. There are some reports of someone having several of their new phones locked, only one is locked, the rest are working. It is likely that the lockdown is continuous and not happening all at once.
The Xiaomi Terms and conditions of sale 14.2 clearly states:
"14.2 The Contract and all Products shall be subject to applicable export control laws, including, but not limited to, export control laws of the United States and the Customer's own jurisdiction. Customer may not export any Product purchased from Seller to any country, territory or region if prohibited by export control laws. Prohibited countries and territories include Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and Crimea. If Customer wishes to export the Product purchased from Seller to another country, Customer must obtain the necessary export licenses (or other governmental authorizations) before proceeding with the export. Customers may not purchase Products for resale or transfer."
It's a good thing they didn't do this earlier, because then we would have lost quite a few phones. Fortunately, the official resellers and the Hungarian representation prevented this, so we can use all Xiaomi devices in Hungary.
