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Laptop sales in Russia in the first half of 2024 increased by 30% in monetary terms and by 14% in unit terms compared to the same period last year, according to M.video-Eldorado. In just six months, Russians purchased 1.4 million laptops for a total of 94 billion rubles.

According to the retailer, the most popular brands are Asus, Huawei, MSI, Lenovo, Honor and Apple. "And the most popular diagonal among consumers has become 16 inches," said a company representative. –Laptops from 15 to 16 inches are in 2nd place, and models from 13.5 to 15.3 inches are in third place."

According to Marvel Distribution, in the first half of 2024, laptop sales in Russia increased by 9.2% year-on-year from 1.29 million to 1.4 million units (the market volume coincides with the number calculated by M.video analysts, but differs in growth rates). "Online stores and marketplaces have become the drivers of growth, and customers' trust in them continues to grow," explains a representative of Marvel Distribution. According to him, sales, cashbacks, bonus and other marketing campaigns of sellers and marketplaces played a significant role, which offered good options for buyers who, moreover, stopped "being afraid to spend money on conditionally expensive goods, which include laptops."

The best-selling brands in the first half of 2024, according to Marvel Distribution, were Taiwanese Asus (16.7%), Chinese Huawei (14.5%), Taiwanese MSI (8.3%), American Apple (6.9%), Chinese Lenovo (6.4%) and Honor (5.8%). The Taiwanese Acer brand occupies 5% of the market, and the Chinese Maibenben has 3.1%. Russian retailers' own trademarks took up 7.6% of the market as a whole. In January – June 2023, MSI was in the lead with a share of 22.2%, Huawei (13.4%), Asus (9.4%), Lenovo (8.1%), Acer (6.6%). Apple had 6.5% of the market, Honor had 6.2%.

THE BEST-SELLING BRANDS in the FIRST HALF of 2024 as COMPARED with the FIRST HALD of 2023

Source: Marvel Distribution

BRANDS	1st HALF  2023	1st HALF  2024
ASUS	9,4	16,7
HUAWEI	13,4	14,5
MSI	22,2	8,3
APPLE	6,5	6,9
LENOVO	8,1	6,4
HONOR	6,2	5,8
ACER	6,6	5,0
MAIBENBEN		3,1
THUNDEROBOT		2,8
OWN BRANDS OF RETAILERS		7,6
HP	3,8
DIGMA	3,4
IRBIS	2,1

The share of domestic laptop brands increased by 53.6% over the year, according to experts from Marvel Distribution. According to these data, 117,700 laptops of Russian brands were sold in the first half of 2023, and 180,700 in the first six months of this year. The share of domestic brands in the laptop market is now 12.9%. "This means that every ninth device sold in our country has Russian roots," the company representative stressed. "The most popular brands are Fplus, Dexp, ICL, Digma, Echips, Osio, Irbis."

Analysts at M.video-Eldorado believe that the share of domestic laptops in money has increased by more than 2 times year by year to 20% (absolute values are not given). Among the Russian brands, the retailer singled out iRu, Irbis, Echips and Osio.

"Their advantages are that they are more accessible to Russian consumers, unlike their foreign counterparts," the company representative said. He added that the user "gets a good product for an adequate price without any brand or premium allowances, as happens in some Western-made models." Secondly, Russian equipment has no problems with warranty and service, the interlocutor noted.

But the representative of Marvel Distribution noted that not only demand has increased, but also the price of the device: the average cost of a laptop for the year increased from 56,800 to 65,400 rubles. According to an independent analyst, the author Vilianov.com Sergey Villanov, on average, Russian laptops cost from 25,000 to 40,000 rubles.

More and more Russian and conditionally Russian brands are appearing in the budget segment, Alexey Boyko, an independent analyst and author of the abloud62 Telegram channel, told Vedomosti. In his opinion, Russian manufacturers are still practically not represented in the premium and gaming segment. "Prices for devices will rise both due to difficulties in settlements with China, and as the activity of Russian manufacturers increases and they switch to domestic components," he concluded.

The Association of Trading Companies and Manufacturers of Household and Computer Equipment (RATEK, includes Yandex Market, Citylink, DNS, etc.) agrees with an estimate of 29-30% growth in laptop sales in the market. "According to our data, Chinese companies and Apple are in the lead," says Anton Guskov, a representative of RATEK. "But Russian brands are also increasing their growth rates, starting from a low base so far." According to Guskov, demand is growing mainly due to the replication, i.e. the replacement of old devices with new ones. "I think it will continue in the near future, if there are no global shocks," he concluded.

Other statistics are given in Citylink. "In the first half of 2024, the cash turnover in the laptops category increased by 21% year–on–year," Alexey Dashkevich, head of the Citylink computer and laptop procurement group, told Vedomosti. "The number of orders and turnover in units also increased by 11% over the period." According to him, the top 5 brands in the first six months of this year included Asus, Huawei, Lenovo, Acer and MSI in terms of the number of orders.

"In the short term, there may be falls and spikes in growth, but in the long term, demand will stabilize," said Oleg Epishin, Director of Sales at Inferit (Softline Group). In his opinion, the main driver of sales of domestic laptops are the requirements of regulators (for example, on public procurement of domestic equipment. – "Vedomosti"). "Of course, there is a gradual saturation of the market, including the retail segment, with domestic solutions," Epishin continued. "But the process is slower than in the corporate and public sectors."

Russian electronics manufacturers from time to time ask the government to ban the parallel import of various equipment, including laptops. For example, in June, the Computing Machinery Consortium (ANO VT) asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade to exclude from the list of parallel imports electronics brands from the American HP and Japanese Fujitsu. In April 2024, ANO VT proposed to the authorities to exclude smartphones, tablets and laptops of any brands from the list of goods allowed for parallel import to Russia in order to promote Russian manufacturers in retail.

Source: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2024/07/04/1047856-spros-na-noutbuki-viros-na-tret?utm_campaign=newspaper_4_7_2024&utm_medium=email&utm_source=vedomosti