About 230 electronics retail chains (three stores or more) operate through sole proprietorship models and purchase Apple equipment without formal contracts with suppliers.
About 230 electronics retail chains (three stores or more) operate through sole proprietorship models and purchase Apple equipment without formal contracts with suppliers.
This was stated by Artur Hatunok, the owner of the Citrus and Yabluka store chains, in an interview with LIGA.net.
«Retail is like under a magnifying glass — everything is visible to everyone. We are interested in working within the rules that we are told. I was at a meeting of a Verkhovna Rada committee and reported to Hetmantsev that about 230 networks (having three or more stores) work as sole proprietors and buy Apple equipment without official contracts with suppliers. And this is precisely the problem of the „gray“ market, and not in the five largest equipment networks. At that time, no one wanted to work with this,» he noted.
The situation began to change after the head of the BEB, Oleksandr Tsyvinsky, took up the problem at the customs level. According to the entrepreneur, in late 2025 — early 2026, gray iPhones became more expensive and became equal in price to official ones. «Illegal movement of equipment has become more difficult,» he explains.
Recall, earlier, Citrus CEO Artem Shevchenko stated that in Ukraine the share of official sales of Apple equipment exceeded 40%, but the «gray» market still remains a significant player.
