MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. The average retail price for smartphones in Russia was 21,400 rubles ($263) in March-May 2023, representing a 13% drop year-on-year, according to mobile operator MTS. Per the Ozon marketplace, the median price decreased by 31%, to 17,900 rubles ($220), the press services of the companies told TASS.

The reason behind the drop was increased demand from Russians for more budget-friendly smartphones from Chinese manufacturers.

"From March to May 2023, 6.6 million devices were sold on the Russian smartphone market totalling 142 million rubles ($1.7 mln). Compared to last spring, sales increased by 40% in volume and by 22% in monetary value. The average price of smartphones for this period decreased by 13% and amounted to 21,411 rubles. The demand and decrease in the average price were mainly driven by the interest of buyers to buy gadgets from Chinese brands, sales of which increased by 70%," the MTS press service told TASS.

According to Ozon, at the beginning of 2023, sales of smartphones on the market soared 3.4 times compared to the same period last year, and the average cost of smartphones decreased by 31% year-on-year, to 17,914 rubles. The company attributed the decrease in the average price to the increase in the number of sellers and the expansion of the range of goods on Ozon.

Smartphone sales on the Wildberries marketplace in the spring also grew by almost four times year-on-year.

"On the whole, buyers are flocking to more cost-effective and practical models worth about 20,000 rubles ($245)," the press service noted.

Another of Russia’s mobile giants, Tele 2, saw sales of its smartphones grow by 25% year-on-year in quantitative terms and by 5% in monetary terms, the press service reported. "In terms of operating systems, Android is far and away the leader in sales. We expect good sales this summer - the trend was set in April, which, for the first time in 10 years, belied its reputation as a month of low sales and showed unexpectedly decent results," the company noted.

Pavel Rabotenko, head of the Telecom Mobile purchasing group at Citilink, added that the volume of Android phones sold increased by 10% compared to the same period in 2022, while sales of smartphones running iOS decreased by 10%. "In the summer, users will continue to favor Android phones due to the more affordable prices for these devices," Rabotenko said.

MegaFon, Beeline and M.Video did not respond to TASS requests at the time of publication.