Tecno’s Response to This Week’s Malware PR Crisis: “Keep Calm and Carry On”
The news that Chinese-owned African mobile phone giant Tecno sold tens of thousands of phones infected with malicious viruses between 2018 and 2019 is now a major international story. CNN, the BBC and dozens of African news outlets have been covering it in detail and, not surprisingly given the company’s enormous market share across the continent, it’s also a hot topic of discussion on social media.
Sensing the potential longterm PR damage a crisis like this can do to a brand, a lot of multinational companies would react with a robust communications engagement strategy in an effort to reassure customers, regulators, and various other stakeholders. But not Tecno.
The company issued a single short statement on Wednesday that they shared with some media outlets but didn’t distribute anywhere else. Neither the statement nor any mention of the crisis appeared on their corporate website or any of the company’s social media channels.
Within hours of the BuzzFeed News report that set all this in motion, Tecno acknowledged that the Triada and xHelper apps were pre-installed by an undisclosed vendor in their supply chain. Then, in the statement mentioned above, the company added that this isn’t actually a new issue and that it first identified the problem back in 2018 and resolved it the following year with a software update that removed the offending apps.
And it looks like, at least for now, that’s all Tecno’s going to say on the matter. They’re clearly hoping this all just goes away.
Judged by history, that’s probably a naive assumption. Back in 2015, it was discovered that Chinese computer company Lenovo shipped PCs with the malware app “Superfish” pre-installed that served up ads and exposed users’ data to hackers. The damage to Lenovo’s brand was enormous and lingered for years after.
There’s no doubt Tecno’s phones are enormously popular in Africa and will continue to sell well despite these revelations. But there’s no doubt that this latest episode will further reinforce the perception among many African consumers that “Made in China” remains synonymous with low quality.
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The post Tecno’s Response to This Week’s Malware PR Crisis: “Keep Calm and Carry On” appeared first on The China Africa Project.
source https://chinaafricaproject.com/2020/08/27/tecnos-response-to-this-weeks-malware-pr-crisis-keep-calm-and-carry-on/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tecnos-response-to-this-weeks-malware-pr-crisis-keep-calm-and-carry-on
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