Since 2019, Uzbekistan has registered more than 97.8 million IMEI codes for mobile devices, with total payments for registration exceeding 3 trillion soums.

Otabek Azimov, head of the department at the Republican Center for Telecommunications Network Management, told Gazeta.uz that these payments are not taxes and are directed to maintaining the system, updating servers, developing communications in remote regions, and paying employee salaries.

In the first year of operation, 47.6 million codes were registered automatically and free of charge. Importers account for 30.4 million registered codes (31.1%), individuals for 19.03 million (19.5%), and local manufacturers for 779 thousand (0.8%).

Smartphones dominate the devices (72.5 million), with Samsung (35.5 million), Xiaomi (18.1 million), Nokia (7.7 million), and Apple (5.8 million) leading the brands.

Over the entire operation period, 20.1 million codes were blocked. Meanwhile, total customs revenues from official phone imports over 7 years exceeded 5 trillion soums.

The UzIMEI system has increased the share of legal mobile device imports to 93%, with 95% of them brought in by importers. This has facilitated the opening of official Samsung and Xiaomi stores, while negotiations to launch an official Apple store have been ongoing for over a year due to the company's privacy policy nuances.

To prevent illegal sale of citizens' passport data on the black market, a mandatory Face ID identification system was introduced into the device registration process.

Source: podrobno.uz