Is the new price tags in the Russian App Store a mistake?

It seems that the “apple” corporation hastened with the introduction of new budget price tags for Russia. The other day it became known about the growing demand in our country for expensive devices.

In Maslow’s pyramid, a brand-new powerful smartphone lies somewhere at the base, between physiological needs and the need to feel safe. This is hinted at by the growth in sales of smartphones worth more than 30 thousand rubles in Russia in the last half of the year.

According to the Euroset chain of stores, sales of expensive smartphones in the country, despite the serious fall of the ruble at the beginning of the year, increased by 304% in pieces and by 400% in money.

Infographics: Vedomosti
Such a miracle happened for two reasons.

Firstly, due to the migration of the smartphone price segment “from 20 to 30 thousand” to the segment “over 30 thousand”. Secondly, as Euroset told our colleagues from Vedomosti, the appearance of a large number of iPhone 6 on free sale, which were in short supply in December. So it turns out that despite the significant price increase at the beginning of the year, it did not force the Russians to abandon, in fact, the status purchase.

That’s just, according to MTS data, referred to by Interfax, this year, due to the rise in price, iPhone sales are declining by tens of percent. In the second quarter alone, they fell by 50% compared to the same ones last year.

And it is within the framework of the latest data that the introduction of new budget price tags for applications and IAP looks like a logical step for Apple. However, will this entail a wave of purchases, even if the MTS data, which hardly takes into account gray deliveries, is fair? And in general, will there be developers who are willing to put a price tag of 15 rubles on their content? How much is it in dollars – $0.2, thirty percent of which Apple departs from? Are you sure you need this?

Seriously, I would still like to agree with Inna Ushakova, who recently told us that the introduction of such measures will not greatly affect the Russian market, because it is a mentality.

Personally, I can’t believe that the introduction of price tags of 15 rubles and 29 rubles will change a person who could afford to buy an iPhone 6 for 40 thousand rubles, but previously considered it an impermissible luxury to spend 55 rubles on an application or IAP? It’s like buying an expensive apartment and not paying for electricity and heating, which, however, is not uncommon.

Summing up, no matter how you look at it, the new price tags are a strange and ambiguous step. If sales of expensive smartphones are growing, then why these innovations? If sales of expensive smartphones are falling, will they be able to increase the profit of developers from the Russian market?

Sources used in the work on the material: vedomosti.ru, interfax.ru, euroset.ru