Why prices for iPhone 16 have dropped
The iPhone 16 has fallen in price on Russian marketplaces. Since the start of sales, prices for the latest line from Apple on Ozon and Wildberries have decreased by 15%. As the press service of Wildberries&Russ told Kommersant FM, over the coming weeks smartphones will become even cheaper until “a balance of supply and demand is achieved.” On Ozon, the basic model of the new iPhone can be bought for about 88 thousand rubles. with an official price of $799. On Yandex Market, the flagship Pro Max fell in price by 40 thousand rubles over the week, to 150 thousand rubles. excluding duties.
A similar situation existed after the start of sales of the previous model, recalled the chairman of the board of the Association of E-Commerce Market Participants, Alexander Efimov: “This is present not only in online, but also in offline trading. For example, abroad, official distributors of Apple smartphones sell this equipment cheaper than in official showrooms, although all products are original and licensed. This occurs through the purchase of volumes at wholesale prices and optimization of logistics costs. Suppliers make bulk purchases in convenient jurisdictions with low transaction costs and attractive taxation on intermediary trade. It is also possible to obtain a market price that will be even lower than the official one. In general, the situation now is the same as before; we do not see any significant differences.
There is also a story about attracting demand and forming a new channel for these products.
Now the prices are like this, but when interest grows, they will return to higher values. Well, or they won’t come back, there are a lot of factors.”
A week after the start of sales, marketplaces recorded a boom in demand for the iPhone 16. Wildberries&Russ told Kommersant FM that compared to the previous model, the number of new smartphones sold increased by one and a half times. Many sellers were forced to reduce prices, noted PR director of the re:store network Lyudmila Semushina: “Sellers on the marketplace are private individuals. You can even remember the “gray” schemes that existed before: smartphones were brought into the country immediately on the day sales started and they put the maximum price on them, in order to also pay off their trip and round-trip tickets to the USA. Private sellers are testing different price levels and trying to sell iPhones to the people who want them first. This was the case until 2022, until the vendor left the market, and this is still happening.
At the same time, of course, official retailers do not purchase single devices, but large quantities, transport them a little slower than marketplaces, but immediately set some more stable prices, taking into account the market, the dollar exchange rate and logistics.
On marketplaces, those sellers who put too high a price tag in the first days of sales did not receive their buyers and, therefore, are forced to revise the price, making it even lower than the market. Many of them, having spent their own money on these devices and not getting the profit they expected, want to take out at least some cache and are ready to sacrifice even the margin. Speaking about us, we calculated sales of the entire iPhone 16 line compared to the previous model. And they are 82% higher in units and 56% higher in money than last year in the first week of sales.”
The media indicate that Russia has some of the lowest prices for Apple equipment. At the beginning of 2024, the previous model, the iPhone 15, was selling for $100-200 more than in the United States.
