New iPad in Russia - May 25

The new iPad, according to the Kommersant newspaper, will arrive in Russian retail on May 25. The price for a “white” tablet will be about 25 thousand rubles for the “youngest” model with Wi-fi and 16 GB. 

The journalists of the publication claim that they received information about this from as many as three knowledgeable sources “in the consumer electronics market.” Probably representatives of major Russian retailers, who, by the way, did not fail to notice that the prices for the device, released in the United States on March 14, have not yet been finally approved. 

Managers of these companies also told reporters that “the new iPad will not work in LTE networks of Russian operators.” In other words, we repeat the “Australian” and “European” stories (their networks also do not support Apple’s 4G). 

By the way, last year for the “younger” iPad 2 model in Russia, official distributors asked from 18,990 rubles. So it’s not entirely clear why Apple tablets will cost more this year. 

Perhaps, to some extent, this increase, as well as the delay in the Russian release, is due to the cancellation by the Federal Customs Service of duty-free import of these devices. 

Recall that in March of this year, the Federal Customs Service reclassified the iPad from GPS navigators to computers. Thus, a duty of 5% was removed from them. But the other day, the management of the service canceled its own order, again imposing a 5% tax on the devices.   

The first delivery of the new “Cupertino” tablets will be about 30 thousand devices.

P.S. According to Kommersant, about 400 thousand iPads were sold in 2011.