A founder of Beijing consulting firm Sino Auto Insights, Tu Le argued that when global brands left Russia, there was a huge hole in the market. He added that Chinese brands fill this hole. An associate director of Counterpoint Research, Jan Stryhak said that Chinese brands quickly get the chances. The brands range from Honor, Realme, and Xiaomi, which previously belonged to Huawei, Chinese tech giant. In the third quarter of 2022, these brands increased shipments to Russia by 24%, 39%, and 190%, and respectively.
Throughout the year, Xiaomi has been the main beneficiary. The product has doubled its market share. Now, the Beijing-based company is Russia’s top seller of smartphones. Majorly because, the Redmi line is popular as the range is affordable and the camera quality is good. Corporate exodus made Russia think about keeping some goods on shelves. In 2022, the government allowed parallel imports of smartphones. This finally could help major Russian retailers to keep selling Samsung and Apple phones while the shipments were suspended. However, there are still major drawbacks. Users buying these phones have difficulties in downloading blocked mobile apps in Russia. Meanwhile there are also challenges in whether or not there is a guarantee.
Therefore, people buy cars via parallel imports. So, they would not pass warranties. This is according to Tatiana Hristova, an associate director of automotive research at S&P Global Mobility. She is confident to say that people have actually nothing to do because they do not have any choice.
The same scenario happened in the 1990s. Now, some Russians could buy Mercedes and Audis on vacation in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan to buy premium brands. Hristova said that if they want to own a car which was not a Soviet-era car, people could go to Europe to buy the car and bring it to Russia for them.
