September 19, MOSCOW (Reuters) – To get around Apple’s export prohibition to Russia, Russian stores have started offering pre-sales of the company’s (AAPL.O) newest iPhone, allowing customers to pre-purchase gadgets that are hundreds of dollars more expensive than they would be in the US.
Leading Russian retailers of electronics, M.Video-Eldorado (MVID.MM) and MTS (MTSS.MM), both opened new tabs on Thursday, claiming to be the first in the country to reveal Apple’s new iPhone 16.
According to M.Video, phone deliveries will start the following week. MTS stated that it anticipated starting physical sales very soon.
In reaction to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Apple suspended all of its product sales in Russia in March 2022 and terminated services such as ApplePay, while Western-imposed sanctions aimed to restrict technology.
A request for comment made outside of US business hours was not immediately answered by Apple. The price of the iPhone 16 will be several hundred dollars higher for Russians than for Americans. International brands that stopped selling to Russia are now trying to contact consumers, usually through nations like Turkey, Kazakhstan, China, India, and the United Arab Emirates that have not placed sanctions on Russia.
The path that the new iPhones will take to enter the nation was unknown to Reuters.
In addition to keeping the products of companies that wished to leave Russia available, the parallel, or grey, import system, supported by the Russian government for brands that left Russia after the invasion, illustrates the difficulty businesses have in maintaining supply chains when they leave a market.
The 128GB iPhone 16 will start at 112,999 roubles ($1,225), according to M.Video, which is more than $400 more costly than the $799 US pricing. In contrast to the $1,599 pricing in the United States, the 1TB iPhone Pro Max was available for pre-order in Russia for 249,999 roubles ($2,710).
Prices at MTS were somewhat more than those at M.Video, and pre-orders needed a 25,000-rouble deposit. Moscow hopes to lessen this possible vulnerability by increasing domestic manufacturing of Western products and technology, which are nevertheless popular in Russia.
Officials using iPhones have been instructed to cease by the Kremlin, which claims that spying software from Western intelligence agencies has infiltrated the devices. Apple has refuted the allegations.