They knocked on the keyboard – Newspaper Kommersant No. 202 (7403) dated 10/31/2022
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The structures of Marvel Distribution will launch retail sales of laptops in Russia under their own brand F + Flaptop in November, and in 2023 they intend to localize their production in the country. Aquarius is also expanding localization in Russia, but so far it is focused only on the corporate and public sectors. Own production in the Russian Federation is necessary for vendors to avoid the loss of foreign assembly due to secondary sanctions, market participants say.
F-Plus Mobile (part of the Marvel Distribution IT-distributor group) will launch laptops under its own F + Flaptop brand, the first batch will appear in federal retail in November, “laptops are designed for mass buyers, made in China, their the cost will be 40–60 thousand rubles,” Kommersant was told in Marvel Distribution.
Next year, F-Plus Mobile plans to localize Flaptop production in Russia and, by the end of 2023, take 20% of the laptop market. Now the production site is at the design stage, the company explained. “We are interested in actively expanding the pool of products and our own production facilities for the assembly of finished products, while continuing to work with domestic contractors in parallel.” Since 2021, Marvel Distribution has been cooperating with the GS Group holding to produce tablets and smartphones for the public sector.
Until now, Russian manufacturers have not focused on the consumer segment and produced devices only for the corporate and public sectors. These laptops are mainly represented by ODM devices (Original Design Manufacturer; they are produced at Taiwanese or Chinese enterprises and are only branded in the Russian Federation). Basically, we are talking about small-scale production that does not meet the needs of retail.
At the same time, some manufacturers have already begun to expand localization in Russia. For example, Aquarius in October announced the production of convertible laptops at a new plant in Tver (see Kommersant of March 31 and October 10). Previously, the model was produced in the Ivanovo region, but in the amount of only 3 thousand pieces. At the new plant, according to the company’s plans, at least 20,000 laptops will be produced by the end of the year, but only for the public and commercial sectors.
The organization of assembling laptops from ready-made foreign components should not create difficulties, says Maxim Koposov, director of the Promobit company (which developed the Bitblaze laptop, which should go retail by early 2023). “In fact, the company will not need high-tech production equipment, it will most likely be an assembly line with quality control facilities for the final equipment. It is now possible to buy such lines without problems both in Asia and in Europe, they are not subject to sanctions,” he says.
The cost of electronics assembled in Russia could potentially be no higher than those assembled in China, the vice-president of a major Russian electronics manufacturer believes. “In such projects, the key issue is well-organized component logistics. If the company is able to establish stable supply channels to Russia, then the final price of the product will be quite competitive,” he notes. The interlocutor does not exclude that own production or even assembly will give F-Plus Mobile access to the public procurement market.
Russian laptop manufacturers are engaged in localization due to the risk of secondary sanctions against foreign partners, a Kommersant interlocutor in one of the Russian vendors believes. “No one knows how long the military operation will continue and how major laptop manufacturers in China will react to it, so domestic vendors want to play it safe and open their own assembly plants in Russia,” he says. According to him, the components will continue to be supplied from China, including through parallel imports.
The presence of own production for F-Plus Mobile will facilitate the service of the sold devices, because there will always be a stock of components, Fintech Lab analyst Sergey Vilyanov notes. “Guaranteed service in a short time is exactly what we have partially lost due to the departure of Western brands,” he says. According to Sergey Vilyanov, one should not expect that laptops assembled in Russia will be cheaper than their Chinese counterparts, “this is primarily due to the small size of the Russian laptop market by world standards.”
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