TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An outdoor screen displayed a Huawei interface and aged Internet Explorer 8 browser on Sunday (May 13). 

While driving through Hsinchu City on Sunday (May 12), a member of the Facebook page Street Observation saw this giant outdoor LED screen displaying the interface of a Huawei device and Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). In 2018, Taiwan reinforced its ban on network equipment produced by China's Huawei Technologies amid security concerns.

The U.S. sanctioned Huawei over cybersecurity and espionage concerns, including under the Trump administration, along with Biden's ban on exporting U.S. technologies to the Chinese company. In 2019, the National Communications Commission suspended sales of certain Huawei models for renaming Taiwan as “Taiwan, China” under timezones and contacts.

Faced with these setbacks, Huawei has not launched a new mobile phone in Taiwan for four years. Huawei has drastically scaled back its presence in Taiwan and on June 18, 2023, closed its last store in Taipei. 

Special Taiwan uploaded the photos of the malfunctioning screen to X on Monday (May 13) and wrote, “Somebody needs to reconsider their IT choices!” The user asked why Taiwan has yet to ban Huawei operating systems and said that less than 2% of electronic devices use Internet Explorer. 

According to Statista, the global market share for IE dropped to 0.22% in May 2023.