It means this company is incompetent and should not be trusted. It’s one thing to have malware injected into software (pretty bad) and another to have physical explosives put into your product.
If you buy them from the back of a truck, then no, Apple has no fault of course.
But there's a declaration saying "we had nothing to do with the pagers even though they have our brand". That's different from saying "they were booby-trapped after they left our hands". Not even the company itself is claiming the defense you're using.
But the best that they can realistically do, once they've found out about the shenanigans, is to cancel the licensing deal with the Hungarian manufacturer. Which they probably will. Maybe sue them in a Hungarian court, if there's anybody left to sue.
I expect brands to have quality control procedures in place.