Top Stories July 25: Russian consumers turn to local marketplaces

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 

Exodus of Western women’s clothing brands from Russia forced consumers to turn to online marketplaces, primarily Wildberries and Ozon. Data from an analytics company Sellematics showed an increase both in sales and in an average purchase size in 2022 compared to a year before. [Source: Spark]

Demand for second-hand smartphones more than doubled in June compared to the same period in 2021. At the same time, the sales of new devices fell by 35% in volume and 38% in value year-on-year due to a shortage of supply. [Source: Kommersant]

Wildberries’ total revenues increased by 94% in the first half of 2022 over the corresponding period of 2021, to $10.82 billion, with a rise of 77% in the number of sales. The increase was partly driven by an inflow of new 335,000 vendors from January to June, four times more than last year. [Source: Retailer]

PIRATED CONTENT

Revenues from pirate video content in Russia amounted to $50 million in 2021, reflecting a drop for a third consecutive year despite a growing interest from viewers, a software company Group-ID said. The drop was caused by the actions of Russian regulators that have been blocking online casino and gambling websites, the main advertisers on pirate video web resources. [Source: Group-IB]

SOFTWARE 

The scientific institute of Roskosmos, a Russian state-owned space corporation, developed software capable of doubling the accuracy of the Russian GLONASS satellite navigation system. This research was conducted back in 2019-2021. [Source: IXBT]

The Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec is considering creating a framework for video game development, a proposal that’s still subject for government’s approval. President Vladimir Putin has recently criticized Rostec’s work, calling the agency’s achievements “modest.” [Source: Kommersant]

RISE OF ANALOGUES

Russian biggest mobile provider MTS is working to create “a Russian Zoom.” To achieve this goal, the company has acquired Webinar, Russia’s leading video conferencing platform. [Source: MTS]

NTTS IT ROSA, a Russian IT company, is developing a mobile operating system that aims to be a competitor to Android. The system, which is the second Russian product in this space, will be released in August. [Source: RBC]

MARKETPLACES

Online education marketplace Profi purchased 10% of TutGood, the online marketplace of private tutors. Through the partnership Profi is going to test new business models in the segment of private tutors, while TutGood will spend the funding on expansion. [Source: RB] 

Yandex, a Russian Internet giant and the leading search engine developed ethical rules for hiring and working with delivery staff for its business units, including Yandex.Lavka, Yandex.Eda, Yandex.Market, Yandex.Dostavka. The rules were shared publicly so that other companies could adopt the company’s ethics code. [Source: Yandex] 

Chinese AliExpress lost its top spot as the most popular marketplace in Russia to Russia’s Ozon, according to the consultancy Brand Analytics. The research was based on the number of mentions of marketplaces in social networks. [Source: RIA Novosti]

INVESTMENTS

The Russian Post, the national state post operator, tested robots for sorting express mail. As a result, the cost of operation decreased by four times, and the speed of processing increased by eight times. [Source: RB]

Russian mobile operator MTS plans to hire 5,000 IT specialists to expand its ecosystem of digital services. They are looking for a range of IT professionals specializing in AI, data science and cloud computing technologies. [Source: RB] 

CENSORSHIP

Roskomnadzor, a Russian communications regulator, has unblocked the browser Tor previously banned in December 2021. The ban was introduced over suspicions of providing access to the darknet. [Source: Kommersant]

Roskomnadzor ordered Russian search engines to label Wikipedia in their search results as an entity that “violates the Russian legislation.” The regulator said in its statement that Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. refused to remove information about the war in Ukraine, which Roskomnadzor considers “fake.” [Source: Roskomnadzor]

The court of Moscow’s Tagansky district imposed a $362 million fine on Google due to the refusal by Google’s YouTube to remove information about the war. That’s a second fine on Google imposed over the same issue. [Source: The Russian Newspaper]