Euroset told about how many Apple smartphones were sold in Russia, as well as about the volume of the domestic market of gray mobile phones.
There are more than 2 million iPhone smartphones in operation in Russia, Viktor Lukanin, Vice President of Euroset, told Vedomosti. Moreover, half of them are gray devices, which, as a rule, are understood to be non-certified devices brought by shuttles from the USA and Europe.
In general, according to Lukanin, the gray market of mobile phones in Russia in 2011 accounted for about 18-20% of official sales, amounting to 39.7 million handsets. Now the share of gray devices in the market continues to grow. If 6-7 million such phones were sold in 2010, then in 2011 their number increased to 7-8 million. In 2012, according to Lukanin, gray suppliers will be able to sell about 9 million devices.
There are several reasons for the growth of the gray market. This is both the high cost of white gadgets, due to VAT and customs duties, and the growing popularity of online purchases: most of the gray imports are accounted for by online stores.
For clarity, here are two price tags:
– 29,990 rubles is a certified iPhone 4S with 16 GB of memory in MTS salons
– from 22,850 rubles there is a similar gray model on the Internet