The US has expanded export restrictions: hair dryers, toasters and coffee machines for Russians will become a luxury

“The United States has banned the supply of smartphones to Russia over $300!” – scream the headlines of all publications. “So what?” – I think phlegmatically, swiping my finger across the screen of a smartphone bought for 15 thousand rubles (and even then it seemed that it was a little expensive for a dialer). Critical thinking turns on after 30 seconds. Okay, for me, “so what”, but someone is used to and wants to use phones of a different level – and there is no reason to condemn people for this.

The meanness of the sanctions is that each of the conditional ordinary Russians is worried about something of their own: someone lacks meatballs from IKEA, someone just can’t find a new hair product to replace the lost one, someone was left without spare parts for the car- foreign cars, and someone is used to expensive smartphones…

Moreover, it’s not only about iPhones: the list of export bans to the Russian Federation, which the US Department of Commerce expanded on February 24, 2023, now includes the lion’s share of household appliances and gadgets, for example, hair dryers and dishwashers of any cost, toasters and vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, coffee machines, as well as keyboards, laser and inkjet printers, hard drives.

The good news is that the restrictions only apply to US-made products. The bad news: any product is considered American if more than 25% of it comes from their technology or components. Well, most of them are in the world. In this sense, only some Chinese brands are free from American hegemony – their products are even marked with the “America free” badge.

In light of this, the widespread opinion collapses from a collision with reality – they say that external sanctions stimulate the creation of their own industries in Russia, and soon, soon, soon, imported gadgets will not be needed. Alas, everything is not so simple, Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group, explains in an interview with an MK correspondent.

— No, Russian smartphones cannot appear so easily today, because they are somehow based on other people’s developments. This threshold of 25% that America has set cannot actually be bypassed. Another problem is that the US does not provide a calculator for calculating this 25%, so it is difficult to say what exactly they mean. This is understandable: there was no precedent before.

Otherwise, Murtazin is quite optimistic. According to him, the trade blockade of the Russian Federation did not happen, because parallel imports, launched in May 2022, are working successfully. Therefore, there is no shortage as such and, most likely, there will not be. Point moderate shortage of specific models – these are the new realities of our life.

“Last year showed us a change in consumer sentiment. Many people stopped focusing on familiar brands and began to choose products based on the ratio of price and quality, due to this, sales of Chinese goods, those that had been on the market for a long time, but were previously in the shadow of competitors, soared.

But even the conservative who is accustomed to the conditional “Samsung” and wants exactly it, will be able to buy it thanks to parallel imports. It’s just more expensive and, perhaps, not right away, says Eldar Murtazin. “All this once again shows that sanctions do not work because of parallel imports! It is very easy to get around them: a Russian company buys everything it needs in a third country and brings it to Russia – that’s all!

The US does not have enough officials to unravel these chains. What can they do? Well, they can, for example, contact Apple with a request to block all phones that are located on the territory of Russia. But they are unlikely to do so.

And you need to understand that the concept of American propaganda is very simple: they say, Russians steal electronics! Like, why do they need so many washing machines? In order to pick out rocket chips from them. Idiocy? Yes. But it is precisely with this idiocy that they seem to be struggling.

Among Chinese brands, the expert emphasizes, there are also premium segment products. Here, after all, the trick is not to, imitating the ill-mannered workers of school canteens, bark: “You won’t stay hungry, there’s nothing to be capricious,” but to find the best worthy replacement.

In general, there is really nothing critical in a smartphone cheaper than $ 300 – nothing at all. It is not even necessary to become an ascetic for this. Using a smartphone of this level, you can make calls (although in the realities of 2023 this is considered a gross invasion of personal space), chat in any instant messengers, download any applications, take good pictures, edit online documents, surf the Internet, watch movies … but what whatever you can do! The main thing is that the characteristics suit a particular user.

And the Chinese are really worth paying attention to: they are masters of stuffing richer stuffing into a smartphone for less money than their competitors, and without any 25% of American luxury.