According to Reuters, Russia’s large electronics retailer M.Video-Eldorado and mobile network operator MTS have announced that they will be the first merchants in Russia to sell iPhone 16. M.Video said it will start delivering iPhone 16 from next week, while MTS mentioned that sales in physical stores are expected to start soon.
In terms of price, the starting price of the iPhone 16 (128GB version) announced by M.Video is 112,999 rubles (about 8,582 yuan), which is 2,583 yuan higher than the 5,999 yuan in the Chinese market and more than 400 US dollars more expensive than the 799 US dollars in the US market. As for the 1TB version of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, its price in Russia is 249,999 rubles (about 18,986 yuan), which is 4,987 yuan higher than the 13,999 yuan in the Chinese market. MTS’s quotation is slightly higher than M.Video, and it is stated that a deposit of 25,000 rubles is required to pre-order the iPhone 16.
After 2022, for some reasons, Apple suspended all product sales in Russia and stopped providing services such as Apple Pay. Subsequently, Western countries also imposed a series of technology export restrictions on Russia. Therefore, foreign brands that have suspended exports to Russia usually need to go through third-party countries that have not imposed sanctions on Russia, such as Turkey, Kazakhstan, India, and the UAE, to import goods into the Russian market. However, it is not yet clear how the new iPhone 16 will enter Russia.
