The Russians are massively buying up “dialers”. What’s happening?

Demand for push-button telephones has sharply increased in Russia. This is written in RBC with reference to data from retailers.

According to the source, in the first quarter of 2022 (from January to March), deliveries of push-button telephones to Russia increased significantly. If we compare the figures for the first three months of 2022 with 2021, then deliveries increased by 43%. Now this figure is at the level of 2017.

The GS Group analytical center notes that from the beginning of January to the end of March 2022, more than 3.5 million dialers were imported into Russia. At the same time, the supply of smartphones decreased – in the first quarter of 2022, they were imported by 14% less than in the same period of 2021. In piece measurement, approximately 6.8 million smartphones arrived in Russia.

Curiously, just over 10 million mobile devices were imported in total, which corresponds to the first quarter of 2021. That is, everything looks as if people are increasingly buying feature phones instead of smartphones, and not at the same time as them.

Market experts explain this phenomenon in different ways. The same GS Group notes that the increase in demand for “dialers” provoked a decrease in confidence in smartphones and brands – people see that the company can easily leave the market and curtail the functionality of their devices for its customers. At the same time, a representative of the company “F-Plus Mobile” says that they simply made a larger order “in reserve” in case supplies are interrupted in the future.