Half of iPhones sold in Russia are activated abroad. Large retail chains have begun to warn their customers about this. The situation also applies to some batches of Samsung, writes Izvestia referring to market participants.
Before delivery to Russia via parallel import, the devices are removed from the packaging and registered in foreign cellular networks. If a year ago 20% of smartphones activated in this way were sold, now it is approximately 50%. Eldar Murtazin, lead analyst at the mobile research group, noted that it is quite difficult to give an exact figure, since the destruction of these devices is extremely opaque.
According to him, the goal of such actions is an attempt by resellers and buyers to hide from the supplier the logistics chain through which smartphones arrive in Russia and avoid various types of sanctions. If the device is activated in a non-sanctioned country, this legitimizes its sale in the eyes of the manufacturer, he noted.
Sergei Polovnikov, director of the Content-Review project, warned that buying activated smartphones is risky. There is no guarantee that the buyer will receive a phone that is not used or stolen. And we are not talking about a single device, but entire batches of stolen smartphones.
In October 2023, demand for the iPhone 15 fell by almost half compared to September, when the novelty was presented, and prices also decreased, by an average of 8-13%. The prices of the iPhone 15 Pro Max with more memory fell the most: between 11% and 13%.
Author:
Karina Pardaeva
Source: RB
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