Page 136 - RusRPTOct22

usually neighbouring post-Soviet nations.
● The Russian authorities have high hopes for parallel imports, which
they believe can protect against shortages of Western brands. But
gaining large-scale supplies through this system is problematic.
● There are even more potential buyers for iPhones than for Apple’s new
iPhone a year ago. For example, mobile operator MTS said it had received 2.5 times the number of pre-orders for iPhones compared with last year, Kommersant reported.
● The likely reason for the interest is the strong ruble, which means that the local price for an iPhone 14 is not much more than the cost of previous versions. For example, a new iPhone 14 costs 84,990 rubles. The iPhone 13 with the same memory cost 79,990 rubles in 2021. Apple’s official price of $799 is unchanged.
The largest Russian food retailers are slowing down trading space expansion amid the fallout from Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, betting instead on proximity format convenience stores and cheaper discounters, Kommersant daily reported. In 1H22 the trading space of Russia’s 200 largest retail chains declined by 13.5% year on year, according to InfoLine data cited by Kommersant. The top ten players also cut their share in total trading space from 72.3% a year ago to 69.5%. As suggested by bne IntelliNews, due to the fallout from Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, consolidation in the retail sector is set to accelerate and the market leaders will focus on capturing more market share in the challenging post-invasion environment.
Russian food retailers increased revenues by 26.5% year on year in 1H22 to RUB3.75 trillion ($61bn, excluding VAT), Vedomosti daily reported citing the data from Infoline.
X5 Group remained the market leader (RUB1.35 trillion top line, up by 19% y/y), followed by Magnit (RUB1.1 trillion, +39%). X5 and Magnit led the market by a large margin, followed by Bristol and Red & White, part of Mercury Retail Group, (up by 33.8% to RUB106.8bn and by 31.5% to RUB327.2bn respectively).
As suggested by bne IntelliNews, due to the fallout from Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, consolidation in the retail sector is set to accelerate and the market leaders will focus on capturing more market share in the challenging post-invasion environment.
Outside of the top three in 1H22, according to the report by Infoline, the regional chain Svetofor in the first half of the year managed to beat French Auchan, taking fifth place in the ranking. In addition, the e-grocery major Vkusvill took eighth place, overtaking the O’Key chain,
136 RUSSIA Country Report October 2022 www.intellinews.com