Chips hold on to the Russian market – Newspaper Kommersant No. 44 (7489) of 03/16/2023

Deliveries to Russia of processors of modern topologies, despite sanctions and restrictions, almost did not decrease in 2022. However, the dynamics differed greatly among different manufacturers. Thus, shipments of AMD processors fell by half, while Intel increased by 9%. They accounted for 90% of supplies, and market participants believe that it will not be possible to completely replace American chips with analogues. At the same time, the customs value of all microcircuits imported into the Russian Federation, including processors, doubled while physical deliveries decreased by 19%. Due to the increase in the price of components, the cost of final equipment, including domestic assembly, according to experts, has already risen by 6%.

In 2022, Russia received about 782,000 Intel processors, which is 9% more than in 2021, a source in the electronics market told Kommersant, citing data from the Federal Customs Service (FTS). Deliveries of another American manufacturer AMD, according to him, fell by half, to 143 thousand units. The volume of deliveries of “other” firms increased by 2.5 times, up to 102 thousand. Which brands these are, the interlocutor of Kommersant did not specify, noting only that among them there are Chinese and Korean.

The total number of chips supplied to the country with a manufacturing process of 32 nm and below in 2022 decreased by 0.7%, to 1.03 million. The FCS told Kommersant that the publication of statistics was only partially resumed and “other information is not provided.”

According to another Kommersant source in the electronics market, who is also familiar with the FCS data, the total supply of all microcircuits (including processors) to Russia in 2022 decreased by 19%, to 511 tons. At the same time, the source notes, the customs value of products increased almost doubled, to $2.1 billion (157 billion rubles). According to him, Intel remains the leader in the number of deliveries (184 tons of components, a decrease of 7%). Also in the top five are American Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, AMD (and Xilinx, which belongs to it), and Swiss STMicroelectronics.

Maxim Tereshchenko, head of the project management department at Delta Computers, explains the high share of Intel components by the fact that a significant part of them are printed at the company’s own factories, where “there is no such queue” as at TSMC, where AMD is produced: “As a result, Intel is increasing supplies around the world” .

A Kommersant source in the electronics market says that as a result of the rise in price of components, the final cost of equipment assembled in the Russian Federation, which uses foreign chips, has increased by 6%.

But now, Kommersant’s interlocutor emphasizes, “parallel import channels have improved and prices are stabilizing.”

Intel and AMD will remain on the top lines in terms of supply of microcircuits in the Russian Federation for a long time, since basically all the equipment in demand in the country works on the Intel x86 architecture, Ivan Pokrovsky, executive director of the Association of Electronics Developers and Manufacturers (ARPE), believes: “Other processor manufacturers are increasing shares, but growth from a low base does not significantly affect the dominant position of the leaders.

Compared to Intel and AMD, other suppliers “look like dwarfs,” agrees the shareholder of Media Holding (Sovereign Mobile Initiative, a domestic manufacturer of mobile devices) Alexander Kalinin. According to him, other processors are mainly used not in computing, but in routers and other related equipment.

Timofey Kornev