Mobile phone sales in Russia to climb 3% in 2013 - Euroset
MOSCOW. Feb 14 (Interfax) - Sales of mobile phones on the Russian market will climb around 3% in 2013 and the share of smartphones will surge 50%, Euroset President Alexander Malis told Interfax.
The mobile phone retailer says 42 million mobile phones were sold in Russia in 2012, up 5.8% on 2011. Sales of regular phones fell 9% to 29.2 million, while smartphone sales leaped 69% to 12.8 million.
The share of smartphones in overall sales in 2013 will reach 45%-50% (30% in 2012), Malis projects. The smartphone market will grow by around 25% in terms of unit numbers and 14% in value terms, he said.
The average price of a smartphone will drop to around 8,000 rubles. Euroset says the average price of a smartphone fell 5.6% in 2012 to 10,500 rubles.
Euroset rival Svyaznoy said last week that the Russian market could decrease in 2013 in terms of unit numbers sold. "The fact is that the share of telephones is completely changing inside this sector," Svyaznoy CEO Denis Lyukovsky said. With the share of smartphones growing and therefore the cost of the telephones purchased, people are taking longer to upgrade their phones. "A Nokia 12.0.8 can be changed every four months, but for an iPhone 5 it is every two years," he said.
Telephone sales, including smartphones, increased 5% to 40 million units in 2012, Svyaznoy says.
In value terms the phone market saw more intensive growth. Euroset estimates the 2012 market at 199.1 billion rubles, an increase of 14.3%, and Svyaznoy says it grew 18% to 195 billion rubles.
Smartphone sales climbed 60% to 134 billion rubles, Euroset reported. Revenue from the sale of regular phones dropped 28% to 65.1 billion rubles.
Samsung was the market leader for sales of phones and smartphones with a 37.3% market share (36.6% in 2011), Euroset said. Nokia saw its share drop to 32.4% from 39%. Fly upped its share to 7.2% from 3.8% and Sony's share edged up to 3% from 2.8%. LG's market share dropped to 3.6% from 6.5%.
Samsung took 38.2% of the Russian market in value terms, up from 31.7% in 2011, Nokia had 23.5% (38.3%) and Apple had 10.8% (7.3%).
Tablet sales surged 360% in 2012 to 3.3 million, Euroset said. In value terms tablet sales climbed 260% to 51.2 billion rubles. The average price of a tablet computer fell 24% to 15,600 rubles.
Apple maintained its leadership of the market (in unit terms), but its share plunged to 27% from 40% in 2011. Next was Samsung, which boosted its share from 14% to 26%.
