Patently Apple posted two reports in December (01 & 02) about a boycott of Apple products in certain circles like the Communist Party, the chamber of commerce in Shanghai and certain Huawei suppliers. In some cases, employees would be fired for buying a new iPhone.

With Huawei's big push on to punish employees for purchasing iPhones, some employee appeared to defy the company and sent out a company greetings for the New Year on Twitter using an iPhone (as noted in the Marques Brownlee tweet below).

What a slap in Huawei's management's face. How embarrassing it must have been for their employees to defy management knowing their distain for Apple. Huawei wasted no time in demoting the two employees responsible for their defiant behavior.

What's concerning is the sentiment expressed by a fan on microblog Weibo who typed a message in context to the Huawei incident: "The traitor has revealed himself." The entry was "liked" over 600 times. The idea that people who use an iPhone are now seen as  "traitors" in certain circles in China is disturbing.  

In an internal Huawei memo dated Jan. 3 seen by Reuters, corporate senior vice-president and director of the board Chen Lifang said, "the incident caused damage to the Huawei brand."

While the explanation of the bungle isn't really credible either, the end result is. Huawei in the memo said the blunder showed procedural incompliance and management oversight. It said it had demoted two employees responsible by one rank and reduced their monthly salaries by 5,000 yuan ($728.27). The pay rank of one of the employees - Huawei’s digital marketing director - will also be frozen for 12 months, it said.