Inoi has become a stranger – Newspaper Kommersant No. 199 (7400) of 10/26/2022

Until recently, the Russian brand of smartphones and push-button phones of the Chinese assembly Inoi now positions itself as Estonian and leaves the Russian Federation. Inoi was the first smartphone that supported the domestic Aurora operating system, but later the brand switched to Android and in 2019 took a leading position in the supply of budget devices to Russia. Now its share in sales of push-button phones is 5.9%, and in smartphones – less than 1%. Nominally, the departure of the Russian brand of phones from the country is the first time, experts say. In their opinion, this is due to the desire to retain foreign partners and supplies.

According to Kommersant’s sources, the Russian phone brand Inoi (OOO Other), owned by the former co-owner of the IT distributor VVP Group (acts as the official supplier of the brand), Sergey Fomin, left the country. A representative of the brand told Kommersant that the company “does not comment in the Russian Federation, since it is Estonian.” Inoi’s departure was confirmed by a source close to the company. According to him, it happened about a month ago.

On the official website of the phone manufacturer, there are no regions of Russia and Belarus that were previously present there, instead the flag of the CIS is used.

The Russian flag disappeared from the Inoi website between March 31 and September 5, archival copies on the Wayback Machine show. Inoi devices are still on sale in Eldorado, Citylink, Beeline and other stores. These companies declined to comment.

The official website of the VVP Group also lacks information about a representative office in Russia, the site map leads to the page of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The group did not answer “b”.

Under the Inoi brand, the first smartphone based on the Russian Sailfish Mobile OS was created in 2017 (later renamed Aurora), the devices were planned to be delivered to the corporate segment, but sales did not achieve noticeable results and the brand decided to switch to budget Android smartphones of Chinese assembly (see “Kommersant” dated April 13, 2018). A year later, Inoi became the leader in deliveries of budget phones to Russia (see “Kommersant” dated June 18, 2019). In 2019, VVP Group competed with Merlion in a tender for the supply of tablets to Avrora for the All-Russian Population Census, but later the repeated tender was won by the Aquarius manufacturer (see “Kommersant” dated November 21, 2019).

Push-button phones from Inoi for the nine months of 2022 in Russia took eighth place in their segment with a market share of 5.9% in unit sales, for the same period last year the figure was 3.1%, follows from Marvel Distribution data.

Another Russian brand, F+, became the segment leader in 2022 with a share of 16.7% (against 9.7% a year earlier). Also among the major players are Philips with 14.3% (last year 13.2%) and Nokia with 12.8% (18.5%). According to Kommersant’s interlocutor in the electronics market, Inoi occupies less than 1% of the market in smartphones.

Inoi’s departure from Russia will not affect the market as a whole, since the company’s share was minimal, said Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily. Another question, the expert emphasizes, is how Inoi will distribute products outside of Russia: in Estonia, for example, “sales, if they grow, will grow very slowly.” Mr. Kuskov notes that formally the Russian brand of phones leaves the country for the first time. The reason, in his opinion, may be the desire to “distance itself from the military operation in Ukraine in order to avoid problems with foreign partners and supplies.”

Timofei Kornev, Yuri Litvinenko