Russian retailers to open Apple’s iPhone SE sales on April 5

MOSCOW, Mar 30 (PRIME) -- Russia’s biggest handset retailers will start selling Apple’s new 4-inch smartphone iPhone SE on April 5, retailers’ representatives told PRIME late Tuesday.

Svyaznoy has already opened book for pre-orders, the company’s spokesman Sergei Tikhonov said.

The country’s major cellular operators MTS, VimpelCom, and MegaFon, which run their own retail chains, started accepting pre-orders for the new iPhone on Tuesday.

Euroset will open sales as soon as it has the new smartphones in stock, but no sooner than the official start, the company’s spokeswoman Ulyana Smolskaya said.

Mobile Research Group’s analyst Eldar Murtazin doubted that the iPhone SE would enjoy a high demand in Russia.

“I’m afraid they won’t be a success. The price is too high for such a model,” he said. “I think that the iPhone 5s will remain the bestseller, and the iPhone SE will be in demand among a small group of buyers, and its sales will hardly be hot; there are no prerequisites for it.”

According to Apple’s Web site, the iPhone SE with 16 gigabytes (GB) of memory will cost 37,990 rubles, and the model with 64 GB 47,990 rubles.

The new smartphone is equipped with a 12 megapixel iSight camera with options of shooting and editing. The smartphone runs on the iOS 9 operating system.

(68.7549 rubles – U.S. $1)

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