Home » Business » Smartphones did not hold on to price – Kommersant newspaper No. 86 (6807) from 05/19/2020

Smartphones did not hold on to price – Kommersant newspaper No. 86 (6807) from 05/19/2020

Against the backdrop of a successful first quarter smartphone market for smartphones, retailers remain optimistic about April-June. They hope that the fall will be avoided, although some experts already predict a decline of 10-20% due to consumer caution and a failure in terms of April sales. In the first quarter, retailers aggressively reduced prices, but now they have stopped doing this, which is reflected in sales, analysts explain.

According to the results of the second quarter of 2020, sales of smartphones and mobile phones in Russia will show near-zero dynamics, there will not be a noticeable drop, retailers surveyed expect Kommersant. According to Oleg Pchelnikov, Purchasing Director of Citylink, sales will be at the level of last year, while the share of the online channel will be higher than a year earlier, due to restrictions on the operation of shopping centers. The fall in sales, taking into account seasonality, is not as large as one would expect against the backdrop of the restrictions imposed by the government, so most likely, after their removal, the market should return to values, plus or minus equal to last year, agrees the CEO of diHouse (included in Lanit group) Yuri Rodny.

Eldar Murtazin, an analyst with Mobile Research Group, does not agree with them. According to his forecast, according to the results of the second quarter, sales will decrease by 20% in money and by 25% in units. “The main reason is the closure of offline retail outlets, and it is important here whether there will be relief in June. Not all regions have online sales that are as accessible as offline. Satisfied demand for devices in the first quarter will also be reflected in the market, ”he argues. The closure of offline stores since the end of March, as well as cautious consumer behavior in the market due to a drop in real income, will affect sales most of all, adds Olga Babinina, an IDC analyst.

One of Kommersant’s sources on the retail market says that by the end of April, the Russian smartphone market had already shown a drop of 30% in money and 23% in pieces.

But at the end of the quarter, the decline will soften to 10%, says Pavel Vyukov, director of the Mobile Communications Department of Marvel Distribution. “The strong drawdown in April can be partially offset in May, and in June there are still chances to fulfill the plans. Online sales, though not completely, compensated for the closure of traditional retail, ”he says.

The online segment is really growing. Orders for smartphones on the Internet grew by 47% year-on-year in March and 29% in April, according to Yandex.Market Analytics. “Since the first weeks of March and the same period in April have similar indicators, it’s premature to say that users have already bought all the gadgets they need. Since April, we have seen an increase in product searches for mobile phones. In April, they were searched 17% more often than in March, ”says service director general Ilya Zinchenko.

The first quarter was successful for the market. According to Svyaznoy, in January-March smartphones worth 128 billion rubles were sold, the market grew by 13% in units and 16% in money.

Comparable figures are given by M.Video Eldorado. The demand was due to the high marketing activity of retailers and manufacturers and the interest of Russians in the new flagship models, the group explained.

At the same time, smartphone shipments to Russia began to fall in the first quarter. According to the results of January-March, their volume decreased by 4% year-on-year, to 6.57 million devices, according to IDC. Analysts at the company found such results good against the backdrop of a depreciation of the ruble and restrictive measures by the authorities. In the first quarter, those devices that could not be sold in Europe due to the introduction of quarantine were imported into Russia, Eldar Murtazin notes. “At the same time, a number of retailers, such as M.Video and MTS, began to aggressively reduce prices for many mass models, which provoked interest from consumers,” he indicates. However, now consumer prices for smartphones, according to the analyst, again went up, which will affect the results of the second quarter.

Dmitry Shestoperov

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