While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say.
The response from the companies at the centre of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37 people and wounded about 3 000 in Lebanon this week has underlined difficulties in discerning how and when they were weaponised.
Taiwan-based Gold Apollo put the blame on a Europe-based licensee of its pager, sparking investigations in Hungary, Bulgaria, Norway and Romania into the origins of the deadly device.
Japans Icom initially said it could not tell if the walkie-talkies bearing its name were real, in a market awash with fake products. It issued a statement on Friday saying it was highly unlikely that the exploded products were theirs.
Icom cited Lebanese telecommunications minister Johnny Corm as saying the devices were not imported through a distributor and that counterfeit products of the same model number were being imported from other countries.
