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.