Laptops thinned out

In the third quarter, sales of laptops in Russia fell by 55% year-on-year, and in general in January-September – by 32%, distributors and retailers calculated. At the same time, the decline in sales in the corporate segment was several times higher than in the consumer segment. The decline in demand is associated not only with the shortage of laptops, but also with the renewal of their total fleet during the pandemic, as well as with the specifics of the request of corporate customers, which the existing stocks and limited parallel imports cannot yet satisfy.

For nine months, 2.1 million laptops were sold in Russia, which is 32% less than in the same period a year earlier, Kommersant was told in Marvel Distribution. In total, 544 thousand laptops were sold in the third quarter, which is 55% less year on year, a source in one of the retailers told Kommersant. Speech, according to him, is collectively about corporate and retail sales.

The drop in sales in the retail segment (it accounts for 62% of the market) for nine months turned out to be much less than in the corporate one (according to Kommersant’s calculations based on the company’s database, by 18% and 47%, respectively), said the business analyst at Marvel- Distribution” Anton Fomin: “This means that procurement procedures in the corporate segment are complicated, since the request for the technical characteristics of devices is often not satisfied with what is left in stocks.” In retail, according to him, pent-up demand is also forming: deliveries that will arrive this year will be able to mitigate the market decline by up to 35% yoy. The analyst adds that at the beginning of the year the average price of a laptop was 61.3 thousand rubles, in March there was a jump to 79.5 thousand rubles, and in September the average bill for the device dropped to 55.6 thousand rubles, which above September 2021 by 2.5%.

According to the results of the third quarter, the average check for a laptop increased by 5% year-on-year, MTS specified: “The growth is associated with a change in consumer preferences – Russians have begun to choose powerful gaming laptops instead of inexpensive models in the middle price segment more often.” The share of sales of gaming monitors in Russia for nine months increased to 50% of the market as a whole (see Kommersant of October 24). Citilink noted that due to the departure of premium brands, there is a shortage in the laptop market, which will remain until the end of the year: “The market was supported by the emergence of new Chinese players, for example, Chuwi and Hasee, and, in general, supplies from Chinese manufacturers.”

There were almost no new purchases of laptops in the second quarter: the chains were selling off the balances, says Grigory Dubrovsky, partner and head of the group for working with telecommunications, media and technology companies at DRT: manufacturers, but it takes time to build parallel import channels.” The decrease in sales of laptops was caused both by a drop in the volume of supply and a certain increase in selling prices for scarce models, the expert adds.

During the pandemic, companies and private users were very active in buying laptops for remote work, Fintech Lab analyst Sergey Vilyanov notes: “Laptops have a rather long life cycle, and all those who bought laptops in 2020 do not need to update their devices yet.” In addition, thanks to the mass withdrawal of Western companies, a huge flow of laptops has poured into the secondary market, partially absorbing demand, he clarifies.

For almost the entire year, retailers have been selling inventory and small shipments of parallel imports, the expert adds. But, according to him, at the end of the year, “large batches of laptops of domestic brands” will begin to come out and supplies of foreign ones will expand.

Anastasia Gavrilyuk, Timofey Kornev