Tablet supplies to Russia in 2023 fell by 27 percent from the previous year, signaling a broad slowdown across the market. Nearly all leading brands saw reduced sales since 2022, with Samsung standing out as a notable outlier due to a drastic drop of 91 percent. This assessment comes from the GS Group’s press service after conducting an in-depth stock review and market analysis.
GS Group’s review identified a clear mix of leader brands and two additional supplier groups shaping the import landscape. Huawei emerged as the market leader, accounting for a quarter of total tablet imports, equivalent to about 330 thousand devices. The first major group consists of Honor and Apple, each contributing about 12 percent of the total tablets imported, matching roughly 159 thousand and 155 thousand devices respectively. The second group comprises Dexp in the RF region with around 100 thousand units, followed by Digma with 97 thousand devices and Teclast with 95 thousand. Together these three brands held around 7 percent of the total value and volume of imports within the period analyzed.
Market positions across the sector proved fragile, with most leaders showing limited stability year over year. Huawei and Digma were the only prominent players that managed to keep their values near the 2022 levels, highlighting a cautious balance between demand and supply in a challenging environment.
Apple maintained some share through parallel imports but still lost more than 20 percent of its 2022 figures. Dexp experienced a sharper decline, dropping more than two and a half times to about 100 thousand units, a consequence of reduced supply in the latter half of 2023. These dynamics underscore shifting sourcing strategies and the impact of logistics constraints on the overall market performance.
New entrants and shifts in consumer choice rearranged the competitive landscape. For instance, Honor surpassed Apple in several metrics, with almost zero imports reported in the previous year, yet achieving higher indicators in 2023. Meanwhile, Teclast, a Chinese brand, tripled its import activity compared with the prior year, signaling a growing diversification in the tablet supply mix for the region.
Earlier industry notes indicated that Russians continued to purchase wireless headphones in volume during 2023, reflecting parallel consumer demand trends that accompany tablet buying patterns in the broader electronics segment and reinforcing the interconnected nature of consumer electronics imports in the market.