iPhone 4 Already in Scarcity in Russia

Apple is a strange company when it comes to Russia: while it has quite a lot of loyal fans here including our own president who seems to be the biggest fan, the company frequently acts like it does not care about the market and its potential at all. The company keeps delaying launches of its ultra popular products and negotiates prices with local retailers that make Apple gadgets far from affordable for the majority of population of the country.

In this situation it is really no wonder that most people who desire a specific device by Apple that is not available find a way to get it outside of the official market. This trend totally spoiled sales of iPhone 3G and 3GS back then after people arrived here on planes from the US with their cases full of Apple gadgets and everyone who actually wanted to have an iPhone actually had one by the time official sales started. I suspect this may eventually happen to iPad when it finally arrives here officially (overpriced as usually) as Russian planes and airports are already full of people using them and no one even knows when the devices will actually be available here officially!

But the latest iPhone model seems to be an exception here as it is definitely turning into a real scarcity here and even if one is willing to pay the high price, one will hardly have a chance to do so or will have to spend quite some time looking for a place to bring the money to. Mobile carriers who have agreed with Apple to sell the smart phones in Russia have reported a huge increase in sales and the devastating fact that the first batch of the gadgets imported to Russia has sold out within the first weekend of sales. But to be fair, we should mention here that sources close to negotiations with Apple claim that this initial batch only consisted of 14-20 thousand devices so it is no surprise that it came to an end so soon.

The interesting part is that the overall situation with the start of the sales of iPhone 4 in Russia can definitely be described as a mess: while everyone was supposed to start on the 22^nd of September, one retailer decided to start selling the gadgets two days before that (they did not agree with Apple on a specific date) – and other retailers obviously followed not to lose the most passionate initial customers.

The retailer who was responsible for the false start of sales, only offered the gadgets in one store in Moscow and a line of a few hundred people was quickly gathered waiting for the midnight and a chance to put their hands on the shiny new devices. It is no wonder that the line quickly turned into a squeezing crowd when the doors of the store were opened – especially given that the first 50 people to buy iPhone 4 could get a 50% discount in exchange for their iPhone 3GS. And the discount is an appealing one given that the 8GB version is priced at about $1,070 and 16GB at over $1,200.

In general, iPhone 3GS did not cause so much interest in Russia because it looked too much like a remake of the previous model and also arrived with a huge delay of more than half a year after it was introduced in the US so the most tech-savvy users did not even consider it a novelty when it finally became available. And iPhone 4 is a very different business so people are eagerly returning to the “good” soviet tradition of waiting in lines!

Probably in Moscow it is more or less realistic to find the device and buy it – at least immediately after every new batch arrives and provided that you have arranged for a pre-order with some retailer. In fact, while writing the post I have checked the websites of all the mobile carriers and retailers who are supposed to sell the devices in Russia, and not anywhere have I found an indication of a specific store where the devices are available – everywhere I was only invited to pre-order online. I don’t know, it could be possible that they expect buyers to simply go from one store to another hunting for their iPhone but this is definitely too much to do even for an iPhone.

In fact, even trying to ‘pre-order’ the device from one of the retailers did not work for me – no matter how hard I tried to leave my contact details to be notified when the device is available, I was immediately redirected to their home page without any chance of actually getting to know when the precious gadget is available. And I am really afraid Apple might be losing potential buyers again – but this time because people will get tired of waiting and will find an alternative way to get the device from eBay or other online auctions where no one will expect a buyer to be jammed in a crowded line for hours.

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