Demotion and a pay cut.

That's the apparent cost of using an iphone, or even letting someone else use one, when you work for Huawei.

Two workers at the Chinese tech giant reportedly punished after the company tweeted New Year greetings to customers marked 'sent via Twitter for iphone".

The tweet was soon deleted, but not before it had drawn mockery across social media.

"The traitor has revealed himself", said one user on China's Weibo.

In an internal memo seen by Reuters, Huawei blamed a firm hired to handle the company's social media.

It said the incident had damaged its brand.

The two employees punished for lax oversight and failing to follow procedures.

Coming just months after Huawei overtook Apple as the world's number two maker of smartphones, it's a sign of just how seriously it takes competition with its U.S. rival.