Smartphone sales in Russia grew by 26% yoy, Infix pushes Apple

For eight months, 18.6 million phones were sold in Russia, which is 26% more than the same period last year, in terms of money, demand increased by 12%, to 396 billion rubles. Apple holds the first place in monetary terms, but in real terms its share continued to decline and caught up with the Chinese Infinix: both companies occupied 9% of the market each. The Chinese company hopes to take 15% of the market in pieces by the end of the year. Experts doubt that the release of the new iPhone 15 will help the American company regain market share: demand will be affected by the price, which, according to the forecast, will be 10-20% higher than the previous model.

From January to August, 18.6 million smartphones were sold in Russia, which is 26% more than the same period last year; in money terms, sales increased by 12%, to 396 billion rubles, calculated in MTS. According to the operator, American Apple is still in first place in terms of money with a market share of 34% (36% a year earlier), followed by Xiaomi with 20% (23% in 2022) and Samsung, whose share in money year-on-year fell by 5 percentage points (p.p.), up to 17% of the market. At the same time, in real terms, Apple’s share decreased by 3 percentage points, to 9%, equaling the share of Chinese Infinix, which had 1% of the Russian market in units a year earlier. In the first place in pieces with more than a quarter of the market, the Chinese Xiaomi remained, followed by Realme (13%), the third place is shared by Samsung and Tecno: they occupy 12% of the market each.

After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, a number of foreign vendors froze official deliveries to the Russian Federation, including Apple and Samsung. By the end of 2022, the share of Samsung in physical terms decreased by 51%, and Apple – by 45%, while the demand for Chinese devices from Tecno, Realme and Vivo increased – by 563%, 122% and 20%, respectively (see Kommersant ” dated December 8).

About 14 million smartphones sold in Russia were sales of Chinese brands that continue to expand their presence and bring new models to the market, M.Video-Eldorado says. According to the representative of the retailer, the price of new models is influenced by the exchange rate, logistics costs, the availability of goods and the offer of partners, as well as a number of other external factors. Mario Yang, CEO of Infinix in Russia, told Kommersant that the Russian market is a high priority for the Chinese company: “Our goal for smartphones in Russia is to get a 15% share by the end of the year.”

Artur Makhlayuk, business analyst at F+ tech-Marvel IT holding, confirmed the reliability of MTS data, but added that the specifics of the gray market did not allow obtaining reliable data on sales volumes: “At the same time, in general, we can say that Apple’s weekly share in the smartphone category stabilized, now this brand holds about 8-9% of the market in pieces. According to Mr. Makhlayuk, this dynamics testifies to the well-established system of deliveries of the American brand products through parallel imports, as well as to the high stock of Apple devices from the retailers themselves.

Sales of Apple smartphones in the re:Store network in the third quarter of 2023 increased by 20% compared to the first quarter, said network director Rasim Lemberansky. He noted that the network also has high expectations from the start of sales of the iPhone 15: “The new iPhone 15 will appear in Russia in official retail in a week or two after the start of sales in the US and other countries.” According to his forecast, the cost of new Apple devices will be 10-20% higher than the price of the previous model.

All deliveries of the new iPhone model in the Russian Federation within a couple of weeks after the official announcement will be gray, the buyer will most likely purchase a smartphone without warranty and service support, which is provided for official deliveries under the parallel import scheme (it is provided by retailers), the lead product manager believes diHouse Lyubov Morozova. The demand for new Apple devices will be affected by the price of gadgets, which will increase with the growth of the exchange rate, Arthur Makhlayuk notes: “The presence of the iPhone 15 on the shelves of Russian stores is unlikely to critically change the share of Apple, it will fluctuate within 2–3% relative to current values” .

Timofey Kornev