The Ministry of Industry and Trade announced the resumption of supplies of popular Japanese printers

Popular Japanese printers Kyocera were excluded from the list of goods allowed for parallel import. The reason is that, according to the authorities, the manufacturer has resumed deliveries to Russia. But the company insists

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has excluded the Japanese printer manufacturer Kyocera from the list of goods allowed for import under the parallel import scheme (that is, without the permission of the copyright holder) due to the fact that the company has officially resumed deliveries of its equipment to Russia. A representative of the ministry told RBC about this - the department received data on the resumption of supplies from retail chains. Where exactly the sale of Kyocera products began, he did not specify. RBC discovered equipment under the Kyocera brand, in particular, on the websites of DNS, M.Video-Eldorado and Citylink.

Kyocera is a Japanese company founded in 1959. It produces kitchen utensils, electronic components, ceramic products, solar panels, cell phones, office equipment, etc. According to the analytical platform Statista, as of March 2021, Kyocera was among the top largest players in the global printer market with a 7.8% share. In Russia, last year, Kyocera was in the top 5 largest sellers of printers, according to the analytical company ITResearch, with a 10% market share (the leader - HP - occupied 36% in sales, Pantum - 16%, Canon - 10%, Brother - nine%).

After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, a number of foreign printer manufacturers either suspended deliveries of equipment to Russia or left the market. In March, HP announced the suspension of product deliveries to Russia. The American Xerox and the division of Canon in Europe, Africa and the Middle East announced that they were suspending work in Russia. At the same time, the Japanese Ricoh Group and Epson also announced the suspension of shipments of devices to Russia due to the situation in Ukraine. In August, the American corporation Lexmark sold its Russian division to F-Plus Equipment and Development (a Marvel Distribution structure).

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In response, the Ministry of Industry and Trade published a list of products allowed for import under the parallel import scheme, which included goods and materials from about a hundred foreign brands, including Kyocera, HP, Xerox, Canon, Epson, etc. In September, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, reported that over the first three months of parallel imports to Russia since mid-May, goods worth more than $9 billion have been imported. The department expects that by the end of the year this amount will double and amount to at least $20 billion.

But in Kyocera itself, the resumption of supplies to Russia is denied. As a representative of the Russian office of Kyocera told RBC, the company only "sells out the rest from the warehouse." At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that the supply of toner cartridges and spare parts for equipment to Russia did not stop.

The information that Kyocera continues to supply consumables was confirmed to RBC by a representative of Marvel Distribution (the largest Russian distributor of equipment, vendor of Kyocera products). He pointed out that the company “had long ago stopped supplying equipment,” and “everything that appears on the Russian market is the result of parallel imports.”

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According to the representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, now "the issue of shortage of consumer electronics products is not worth it," which "is confirmed not only by data from retailers, but also by printer manufacturers." According to the agency, with reference to manufacturers' data, the volume of printer production in Russia has grown more than 5 times since the beginning of the year.

At the same time, as RBC was previously told in ITResearch, in the first three months of this year, the market for printing devices sank in terms of the number of devices sold by almost a quarter, but its volume in money increased slightly due to rising prices. In the third quarter, in absolute terms, the market began to grow (almost 300 thousand units), although it showed a double-digit drop year-on-year. ITResearch experts attributed this to the fact that the contribution of deliveries under the parallel import scheme began to be felt with the simultaneous growth of the role of Chinese Pantum and import substitution. After the departure of American printer manufacturers, Chinese, Japanese and domestic brands increased their shares in the Russian market. According to analysts, by the end of the third quarter, Pantum (53%), American HP (21%), Japanese Epson, Canon and Brother (4-5% each) were the largest in terms of the number of printers sold.