Square iPhone - Newspaper Kommersant No. 174 (7375) of 09/21/2022

Square iPhone - Newspaper Kommersant No. 174 (7375) of 09/21/2022



After the legalization of parallel imports in Russia, the number of small sellers selling iPhones through marketplaces, as well as their sales, has increased. Apple phones introduced in 2022 on marketplaces are sold cheaper than in large retail chains, the price difference for individual models exceeds 40 thousand rubles. Apple performs warranty repairs on all its equipment, regardless of where it was purchased, but the regularity of supplying Russian service centers is now in question, experts say, recalling the usual risks of buying from little-known sellers.

The number of sellers of Apple devices on Wildberries has grown by 61% since May, when the site allowed the sale of equipment imported under the parallel import model, Wildberries told Kommersant. According to the marketplace, the increase in Apple sellers on the site was twice as large as the overall increase in the number of store partners. SberMegaMarket did not notice a significant increase in the number of iPhone and iPad sellers on the site, but they observe an increase in sales of Apple mobile devices from May to August by 305%. Yandex Market did not provide data specifically for Apple sellers, Ozon declined to comment.

iPhones, announced and imported into Russia after direct deliveries were stopped, are sold on marketplaces cheaper than in retail stores, which were Apple's official resellers before the aggravation of relations with the West and the imposition of sanctions. In particular, the basic iPhone 13 model in Alpine Green is available on marketplaces at a minimum price of 54.4 thousand rubles. (“Yandex.Market”) up to 65 thousand rubles. (Wildberries); in large chains of electronics stores, the same phone costs about 77 thousand rubles. You can buy the third-generation iPhone SE directly only from one major retailer - DNS (39.9 thousand rubles), as well as in the M.Video marketplace section for the same price. On Yandex.Market and SberMegaMarket, the phone is available for 25 thousand rubles.

M.Video also sells the green iPhone 13 Pro as a marketplace, but its price is comparable to the price for the goods from the store itself: 112.2 thousand against 115.9 thousand rubles. On Ozon, the same model is sold for 69.2 thousand rubles. In M.Video-Eldorado, when asked about the unavailability of the third iPhone SE, they said that they do not exclude its appearance if such phones are in demand. When calculating, Kommersant did not take into account the phones of the new iPhone 14 line, the first batches of which are sold on Yandex.Market (its cost on this site starts from 106 thousand rubles).

Large retailers do not yet sell new items, but collect pre-orders for them (see Kommersant dated September 15).

Small stores, including through marketplaces, are not interested in receiving equipment from the same distributors with which large chains interact, it is too expensive, says a Kommersant source in the consumer electronics market. He added that the stoppage of direct deliveries of the iPhone led to the fact that distributors offer potential buyers only already imported goods, and do not supply them on order: “The second option does not work yet - the goods are delivered too long and unpredictably.”

If a person has bought an original Apple product, then it is covered by a worldwide warranty, regardless of whether the device was purchased from a major retailer or from an individual entrepreneur on the marketplace, says Lyubov Morozova, Apple Lead Product Manager at diHouse (part of Lanit Group of Companies): "Apple is honoring all of its warranty obligations even now, when official deliveries of its products to Russia have been stopped."

However, adds TelecomDaily CEO Denis Kuskov, it remains unclear whether Apple continues to co-finance repair costs at authorized service centers. He noted that buying an iPhone on marketplaces comes with the risk of getting a refurbished device under the guise of a new one: “Large companies will not go for it, because they are easier to prosecute than small sellers.”

Yuri Litvinenko



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