HP ends ties with Russia, shutting down its Russian website — website redirects to Kazakhstan with no support

HP Printers, Desktops and Notebooks
(Image credit: HP Kazakhstan)

HP (via CNews) seems to have completed its exit from Russia, as required by the sanctions imposed by the United States in response to Ukraine's invasion. Recently, HP shut down its Russian website, which usually contains drivers and a hub for receiving the support needed in the Russian language. HP also removed Russia from its Country/ Region list and all landing pages.

When trying to visit HP Russia's website, it redirects it to its Kazakhstan page, as Russian is one of the spoken languages in the region. While it does allow you to download drivers for notebooks, printers, and other hardware, HP in Kazakhstan does not have online support.

HP also removed its website from Belarus and halted its sales, as HP announced earlier. Like Russia, the HP landing page for Belarus redirects to Kazakhstan. HP Enterprise stopped its operations in Russia and Belarus in 2022. For HP, sales in Russia and Belarus amount to $1 billion.

The Russian news site that reported this indicated that HP did not inform its users or send notifications to its users, as Microsoft did. However, HP Inc.'s decision to exit Russia and Belarus was set in motion in March 2022. As a result, it has already stopped exporting new products.

During this time, HP's nationwide sales plunged, eventually being overtaken by other companies, such as a Chinese-based printer company called Pantum. The company now enjoys 53% of Russia's printer market, which had 16% before 2022. Interestingly, Epson enjoys an increase of 22.1% and still has its Russia landing page active for now. That may change as Epson also suspended its exports to Russia and Belarus in 2022.

Despite sanctions imposed by the U.S., there are alternatives for hardware and software to take over, even if the parallel import thrives. While some have roadblocks that set its transition to locally made options trickier, Russia and China have been working on alternatives for operating systems and other hardware. Where it couldn't, it resorts to purchasing from different countries.

Withdrawal of certain companies paves the way for domestic manufacturers to thrive. Though sanctions are supposed to implement consequences, Russia and China seem to manage with currently available or newly developed solutions to take their place.

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Contributing Writer

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh has been in the Indian PC hardware community since the early 2000s and has been building PCs, contributing to many Indian tech forums, & blogs. He operated Hardware BBQ for 11 years and wrote news for eTeknix & TweakTown before joining Tom's Hardware team. Besides tech, he is interested in fighting games, movies, anime, and mechanical watches.

  • Amdlova
    HP can't sell subscriptions models to russian people... So sad HP :(
    Reply
  • Vanderlindemedia
    Here's one for you...

    A client of me reported URL's not working on a partial RU/EN website. So i started to investigate, could not hack it. I requested the help of a colleague - nothing either. We figured that the front-end of the website was just working fine; everything in check and nothing out of order, it just was not working as it should.

    So i stumble on the idea that a Russian locale language file on the server might be missing. Strange, since the website used to work for months before that with no change. So i contact the software provider that i have a license on, i explain the situation, and within 15 minutes they reply me with Oh you can install the RU locale file.

    Little they know is that my server manager attempted to (re)install the RU locale file; which was not available at that very moment. Only when the support responded, suddenly it was available.

    Now that we dug deeper into the situation, it seems that the cause was Directadmin, that revoked RU locale files in a update with no notification or whatsoever. Honestly i'm getting tired of these russian sanctions. My own goverment is not going to compensate me a good client. So as long as that not happens, i refuse to give in in doing what they want.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    RIP Instant Ink in Russia.
    Reply
  • brandonjclark
    Vanderlindemedia said:
    Here's one for you...

    A client of me reported URL's not working on a partial RU/EN website. So i started to investigate, could not hack it. I requested the help of a colleague - nothing either. We figured that the front-end of the website was just working fine; everything in check and nothing out of order, it just was not working as it should.

    So i stumble on the idea that a Russian locale language file on the server might be missing. Strange, since the website used to work for months before that with no change. So i contact the software provider that i have a license on, i explain the situation, and within 15 minutes they reply me with Oh you can install the RU locale file.

    Little they know is that my server manager attempted to (re)install the RU locale file; which was not available at that very moment. Only when the support responded, suddenly it was available.

    Now that we dug deeper into the situation, it seems that the cause was Directadmin, that revoked RU locale files in a update with no notification or whatsoever. Honestly i'm getting tired of these russian sanctions. My own goverment is not going to compensate me a good client. So as long as that not happens, i refuse to give in in doing what they want.
    I hear you. I just want (like most sane people) for this whole thing to be over. One of my last acts at a previous company was doing what I could to secure up some IP being developed "over there", as if the people I was working with daily were now bad people.
    Reply
  • vanadiel007
    It's so shortsighted by the US government. This is what potentially is going to happen due to these sanctions:

    - HP might have to lay off workers due to lower global sales.
    - HP might outsource more production to cheap labor markets in order to lower manufacturing costs.
    - Customers might pay more because HP will try to make up for lost profit.
    - By the time these sanctions are over, HP will have lost most of it's market share in Russia and will have a hard time reclaiming market share.

    Speaking about shooting yourself in the foot...
    Reply
  • williamcll
    Looks like it's a new era of ingenious russian hardware hacking time.

    PBme said:
    Oh no.! Poor you!! It is so sad how you are being inconvenienced because the US isn't totally ignoring Czar Putin's invasion. Sounds like you should move to Russia or China where you won't be inconvenienced by them slaughtering masses of people.
    How is this remotely related to the topic? <Mod Edit - Off topic removed>
    Reply
  • PBme
    williamcll said:
    Looks like it's a new era of ingenious russian hardware hacking time.


    How is this remotely related to the topic? Take it to telegram or something.
    lol, what? Do you not even understand why there are santions? I give two <Mod Edit> about people whining because they are inconvenienced by them. <Mod Edit - Off topic removed>
    Reply
  • Sangheili112
    vanadiel007 said:
    It's so shortsighted by the US government. This is what potentially is going to happen due to these sanctions:

    - HP might have to lay off workers due to lower global sales.
    - HP might outsource more production to cheap labor markets in order to lower manufacturing costs.
    - Customers might pay more because HP will try to make up for lost profit.
    - By the time these sanctions are over, HP will have lost most of it's market share in Russia and will have a hard time reclaiming market share.

    Speaking about shooting yourself in the foot...
    Not really hp already knows how much it makes, lossing russia would be like lossing 2% of its profit

    HP printers are almost used in every work environment as well hp computers although Dell computers are normal used HP has a 20% of the global PC market. Last year they shipped more products then dell
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    OK, that is IT on the off-topic political junk.

    Period.

    Are we crystal clear on this?
    Reply