28 September 2023 09:50 28 Sep 2023 09:50 | Share
Russians began to buy video projectors amid the lack of Hollywood blockbusters in cinemas and the reduction in assortment in online services. They are setting up their own cinemas at home, as a result of which sales of projectors have increased three to five times, depending on the retail chain. New brands are constantly entering the market, and the more there are, the higher the competition and, therefore, the lower the prices. In just a year, the average purchase price for a projector at M.Video has halved.
Cinemas are no longer needed
Residents of Russia have found an original way to circumvent Western sanctions, due to which they can no longer watch dozens of films in classic and online cinemas. Films are withdrawn from distribution, but you can still watch them at home, finding them on torrents and file sharing sites, and Russians have been able to replace the cinema with ordinary video projectors.
Video projectors, which have always been a very niche device, have gained incredible popularity among the Russian population. In 2023, their sales soared five times year on year, and this is only in the M.Video and Eldorado stores, representatives of the M.Video-Eldorado group told CNews. Moreover, the statistics only take into account the period from January to August 2023, and the pre-New Year shopping season is still ahead.
The more such devices are purchased, the faster the audience of Russian offline and online cinemas will decline.
The dynamics of growth in sales of video projectors in Russia is certainly impressive, but the retailer did not provide absolute figures, so it is unknown exactly how many such devices were sold in physical terms during the reporting period. It should be noted that video projectors themselves are far from new devices; you could buy them for your personal home theater at the beginning of the twentieth century, but they were never in great demand. Their advantages include ease of use – the image source can be either a computer connected via HDMI or a flash drive. Many modern models can even receive a signal via Wi-Fi, for example, from a smartphone.
Online retail is not far behind
While online cinemas are reducing their assortment under pressure from foreign rights holders and sometimes from Russian authorities, online retailers are increasing sales of projectors. At Ozon, in the first eight months of 2023, they jumped by 330% compared to the same period in 2022, that is, more than three times, Vedomosti writes.
Similar statistics were provided to the publication by the Megamarket trading platform, until recently called Sbermegamarket – during the reporting period it sold 336% more projectors than a year earlier. At Citylink and Wildberries, projector sales increased fivefold. “In January – August 2023, sales of them (projectors – CNews’ note) on Wildberries in units increased by 546% year-on-year, and of projector screens by 442%,” representatives of the trading platform told CNews. The services did not disclose statistics in physical terms.
However, some data on projector sales on the Russian market is still available. The publication cites statistics from the IT holding Fplus, which recently underwent rebranding – according to its data, in the first six months of 2023, Russians bought almost 65 thousand projectors. Sales growth was 82% year-on-year in physical terms and 52% in financial terms – residents of the country spent $62.7 million on these devices.
Conventional cinemas have not had time to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Now video projectors are taking their place.
There is logic in this – in 2022, Russians were deprived of many films against their will, including those that even residents of neighboring countries can watch without any restrictions. The simple answer is to find the source of pirated content and start watching movies at home using a video projector, which probably caused an explosion in demand for them.
But sales of these devices in Russia turned out to be higher than even in 2021, Fplus representatives noted. Let us recall that in the spring of 2020, Russia plunged into the coronavirus pandemic with all the ensuing consequences – forced self-isolation, mass layoffs and, among other things, a ban on visiting cinemas. As a result, projector sales jumped in 2021, but 2023 broke all records in this regard before it even ended.
China and parallel imports – to the rescue
Fplus is confident that projectors in the entry-level price segment have experienced the greatest increase in demand. Representatives of the holding told the publication that in Russia they account for about 40% of all sales.
Wildberries told CNews that Russians most often buy projectors from Asian manufacturers, and give preference to brands that have officially suspended their activities in Russia. The top sellers are Taiwanese Acer and Korean Samsung, which have been boycotting Russians since the spring of 2022, as well as Chinese Wanbo (another Xiaomi subsidiary). The equipment of the first two brands is most likely imported into the country through parallel imports.
There are no paper hackers – cloud security must be real
Clouds
At M.Video-Eldorado, customers most often purchase projectors from Chinese vendors Xgimi, Hisense, and Nebula. In Citylink, writes Vedomosti, the top 3, in addition to the mentioned Xgimi and Acer, included the Russian brand Cactus, and in Ozon the most popular projectors are the Chinese brands Wanbo, Umiio and TouYinger, Xiaomi, Akenori and Ademy.
Moreover, Russian retailers are not complaining about the reduction in the number of projector brands. On the contrary, they notice that their number is increasing thanks to China.
Still expensive
The growth in the number of players in the market, that is, the rise in competition, leads to lower prices, especially thanks to the Chinese manufacturers Wanbo and Umiio, Vedomosti writes. However, a high-quality home projector is still very expensive when compared with salaries in the regions. Although the average bill has decreased, at M.video-Eldorado, for example, it is still 85 thousand rubles, although this is half as much as in 2022. At Citylink, the average bill decreased by 10%, in Ozon – by 12%.
Georgy Dorofeev
2023-09-28 07:03:09
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