iPhone prices in Russia are going down: why smartphones should not be bought at the start of sales
Hi all.
One of the first pieces I did for Mobile-Review.com in 2017 was a mini-study of how the price of a new smartphone changes over time.
Samsung was among the smartphones that are not worth buying at the start of sales. After about 3-4 months, the price of the flagship shelf dropped by about 30%. A similar situation occurred with other Android manufacturers. And Apple demonstrated the greatest resilience. A year later, the iPhone lost only 13% in price.
Here are examples of price reductions for a number of popular models. Please note that the period estimated here is 2 years. Android flagships are already 30% cheaper after six months. Samsung is the most actively depreciating, because the manufacturer adheres to the strategy of “collecting the cream”, and then switches to “capturing the market”, actively dumping. In turn, Apple, trying to control sales channels, made sure that there were no discounts on its products.
| Reduction from original price for | |||
| 6 months | 1 year | 1.7-2 years | |
| Sony Xperia Z5 Premium 32gb | 22,00% | 32,00% | 50,00% |
| Samsung Galaxy s6 32gb | 33,00% | 30,00% | 52,00% |
| Apple iPhone 6s Plus 64gb | 0,00% | 13,00% | 36,50% |
Now the situation as a whole has not changed. With the only amendment that the gray market has replaced the white market, and a number of players officially present in Russia are engaged in price control. For example, realme makes sure that its smartphones do not lose in price. And this turns out to be relatively successful, since there are practically no gray supplies of realme and buyers go to online retail.
But where there is a gray market, prices are flying down at cosmic speed. Especially if there is no demand. At the start of sales, iPhone prices were sky-high even on the gray market. Let’s see what prices are now for new iPhones on Yandex.Market. If you look at sellers on Avito, the price there starts at 85 thousand rubles for an iPhone 16 128 GB.
| Was | It became | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple iPhone 16 128 ГБ | RUB 114,990 | RUB 98,558 |
| Apple iPhone 16 256 ГБ | RUB 129,990 | RUB 115,803 |
| Apple iPhone 16 512 ГБ | RUB 159,990 | |
| Apple iPhone 16 Plus 128 ГБ | RUB 134,990 | RUB 104,465 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Plus 256 ГБ | RUB 149,990 | RUB 143,782 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Plus 512 ГБ | RUB 179,990 | |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro 128 ГБ | RUB 154,990 | RUB 138,562 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro 256 ГБ | RUB 169,990 | RUB 148,963 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro 512 ГБ | RUB 199,990 | RUB 181,572 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro 1 ТБ | RUB 229,990 | RUB 202,507 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 256 ГБ | RUB 194,990 | RUB 164,211 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 512 ГБ | RUB 224,990 | RUB 194,931 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 1 ТБ | RUB 254,990 | RUB 236,990 |
Please note that not all fields are filled in in the table, since some models were not found on Yandex.Market. It is likely that this is due to the fact that gray trucks do not see the point in transporting such models.
At the start of sales, all manufacturers try to create a stir. A typical technique is to give away samples for reviews, but force them to sign an NDA. As a result, it turns out that everyone releases a review on the same day and time. It seems that the entire Internet is literally replete with news about the release of a new tablet and you need to rush out and buy it.
Another trick is to give gifts and a discount for pre-ordering. Sometimes gifts are really valuable. For example, HONOR tried to give away a tablet at the start of sales of one of its smartphones. Another point is that the smartphone is an uber-flagship, and the tablet was from the economy segment, but it’s still nice.
High sales at the start is a key task for the manufacturer, because there are many players in the Android market and after a couple of weeks no one will remember about the presented smartphone, because other manufacturers have already launched their devices.
And finally, I would like to remind you that, although the quality of smartphones has increased significantly, there are always problems at the start of sales. An example here is the Galaxy S22 Ultra. At launch, users complained about the device overheating. Samsung solved the problem only after several months. And recently Roma Belykh released a review of ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra, starting the material with the phrase: “The device was presented in March of this year, but it’s worth buying it only now. The early firmware was crude: the device got very hot, the interface periodically crashed, face unlock did not work correctly, and the main functions of artificial intelligence were missing.”.
In the case of the iPhone, problems also regularly arise. The iPhone 16 line is no exception. “I’m glad” that most of the defects are software. We won’t even talk about the lack of Apple Intelligence, because this is not a bug, but a feature. But users complain about unstable camera operation, overheating, application icons disappearing from the desktop, and there are also rumors that instead of 120 Hz, Apple has blocked the interface refresh rate in a number of scenarios at 80 Hz. Supposedly this was done to improve battery life. iOS18 seems to have become the most problematic release in recent years.
As a conclusion, we can write a small set of rules that should be followed before purchasing any equipment, and often video games:
- You should never pre-order. Manufacturers of smartphones and video games love to promise mountains of gold and a lot of features. But the reality is often not so colorful.
- You shouldn’t run out and buy hardware or software at the start, because the price will be maximum and the firmware will be crude.
In the case of games, it is almost 100% likely that the initial release will be crooked and crude. After 2-3 weeks, the developers will release a patch. Technology suffers from similar problems, since production workers also need to get the hang of assembling smartphones. There are, of course, no more situations where glue appears on the screen, but problems can still exist. - In the case of games, you should wait a month or two, but smartphones should be bought after 3-6 months. The manufacturer, having collected the cream of the market, is trying to increase sales by attracting customers with discounts. However, at this point it is always worth looking at the sales history of a particular manufacturer. Thus, realme and HONOR control the prices for their products, but gray trucks do not favor such equipment, so you can’t expect significant discounts.
Samsung and paid artificial intelligence
We already discussed Samsung’s desire to introduce a subscription for Galaxy AI capabilities. Then there were rumors that Samsung in China would test a subscription model and start charging 15 yuan per month from August. There is no news on this topic. It is possible that the cost of the subscription will be covered by Meitu, Baidu and WPS, with which Samsung cooperates in China. This can be done in the same way that Microsoft does with its Copilot. If you ask the AI where to eat, it will name several restaurants, one of which may be marked with an advertising plaque.
However, rumors continue to penetrate the market that Samsung will introduce a subscription. I want to say right away that the appearance of a subscription is inevitable. I have repeatedly pointed out the key problem of Android manufacturers: they begin to lose money and contact with the client at the time of selling a smartphone. And now the rate of money loss has only increased, because, for example, Samsung promises that it will release updates for the smartphone for 7 years. That is, in theory, the buyer will come for his next purchase in 7 years, and throughout this period the company should send him updates and make sure that his device works well. Someone has to pay for this celebration of life.
However, before the introduction of AI, Android manufacturers had no reason to charge. Well, you really won’t ask for coins for a camera or a settings menu. And here is some additional function.
There is no information about other manufacturers yet, but Samsung is quite actively exploring the possibilities of additional income. For example, in a number of markets it has a “Wi-Fi Protected” option, which is an analogue of Cloudflare WARP with a DNS server, which the company offers to use when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks. The company gives 250 MB free, then the price is $1.99 per month and 1 GB of traffic or 0.99 cents per day.
So we can expect something similar to come with Galaxy AI. Although, you may have noticed that Samsung abandoned the term in official communications. They dropped Galaxy and now simply write AI, as Google does on the page with Pixel smartphones.
Question for Samsung users. Now almost all Samsung smartphones have been updated to shell versions that contain artificial intelligence. Tell us what features you use and whether you are willing to pay for them. If so, what price would be considered fair?
Conclusion: what is it called?
Yesterday a small material was published on communication tariffs in Kyrgyzstan. I was surprised to discover that the bulk of the comments were devoted not to the topic of the material, but to indignation at the fact that it was written “Kyrgyzstan” and not “Kyrgyzstan”. I thought the Kyrgyz came to explain, but no. It turned out that readers found in this a “new spirit of the times” and “promotion.” What exactly is going on and what exactly is being promoted was not reported.
However, the topic of names and self-names itself is quite interesting. I believe that the most striking example is the controversy surrounding “in Ukraine” and “in Ukraine.” In Russia, until recently, it seems to me, no one seriously thought about which option to use. Now, of course, the situation has changed, and the use of “in Ukraine” / “in Ukraine” has become a kind of expression of position.
I’ll share my opinion. The situation with Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan is in a sense unique, since citizens of these countries understand Russian and can express their opinions in it.
On the one hand, what one country calls another country should not concern citizens of other countries. In addition, names often contain historical roots. For example, in Latvia Russia is called Krievija, that is, Krievia. And all because historically the Krivichi tribes lived on the border lands. The Finns dug even deeper and call our country Venäjä in honor of the Wends, who are considered the ancestors of the Slavs. Herodotus mentioned the Wends in the 5th century BC. It is clear that there have been no Wends for a long time, the peoples have mixed up, but the language still “remembers”. It’s funny that the Swedes in Finland were called Rus, and Ruotsi – Sweden itself.
And in Mongolia, Russia is called Orosyn Kholboony Uls, and then shortened to “OHU-yn,” where “yn” is a suffix that is used in such abbreviations. So the Mongols believe that Ohu-yns live in Russia, and the Ohu-yns don’t care that they are Ohu-yns, because they don’t know the Mongolian language.
On the other hand, where the population understands the language of its neighbor, friction arises. For example, something similar can be found in former English colonies. Thus, some residents of the city of Mumbai do not like it when it is called Bombay, because this is associated with the colonial past. Another example is Iran, which was known as Persia for most of history. The Iranians did not like this name because it was invented by Greek historians and introduced into Western culture. And Iran is a self-name from the Aryan tribe. In 1935, Persia became Iran, and almost a hundred years later the name is not controversial. But if you open the archive of The New York Times newspaper for 1935, you can come across columns with opinions that Iran cannot derive its name from the Aryans and in general everyone is accustomed to the term “Persia.”
And in such situations, the choice of contacting another country is based on the banal principle of politeness. For example, if Iran is called Persia, then it is unlikely that it will be possible to build strong partnerships.
In the case of Kyrgyzstan, I would also like to draw attention to the fact that the Russian language is included in the number of official languages on a par with Kyrgyz, that is, the Kyrgyz have the same right to practice word formation as the residents of Russia. But about Ukraine it’s a little more complicated. The official language in the country is Ukrainian, so “in Ukraine” is a foreign expression, so there should be no questions about it: foreigners speak as they like. But a large percentage of citizens who understand the Russian language live on the territory of the country, and here the issue moves into the plane of respect and politeness.
Source: mobile-review.com
