Norilsk Telecom (NT), one of the largest fixed-line and broadband operators in the Krasnoyarsk region, is up for sale again. The company’s only shareholder, investment bank KIT Finance, hopes to sell the asset before the year’s end. A few potential buyers have emerged.
According MForum Analytics, Russian sales of touch screen phones increased fourfold in one year, rising from 2.94 million devices sold in 2009 to 11.93 million in 2010. At the end of 2010, touch screen phones accounted for about 30% of all phones sold in Russia, but could reach as much as 50% or more by …
Russian touch screen phone sales quadruple in 2010 Read More
Viktor Vekselberg, president of the Skolkovo Foundation, annouced yesterday to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that the first office building of Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub under construction near Moscow, would be completed before the end of the year. The project’s administrative center will move to the Skolkovo territory in November, Vekselberg said.
Representatives of the mobile operators involved in the discussions with the State Radio Frequency Commission (SRFC), speaking under conditions of anonymity to Vedomosti, reported that the creation of the consortium is being delayed and the July 1 deadline for completing the investigations on frequency conversion is unlikely to be met.
Ukrainian fund United Media Holding (UMH), owner of a variety of media companies in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, is in the process of acquiring a controlling stake in Sports.ru, reports RBC Daily, a Russian business daily, from unnamed sources.
Yesterday Moody’s placed the corporate family rating (CFR) and the probability of default rating (PDR) for Sitronics, a Russian provider of corporate telecommunications solutions, on review for possible downgrade.
European online music service Spotify, which offers streaming audio tracks on demand, is currently closing a round of financing of $100 million or more, reports TechCrunch from unnamed sources. DST is said to be leading the deal, which would value Spotify at around $1 billion.
Fiber-optic communication provider TTK will launch a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) to serve its main shareholder, the state owned Russian railways (RZD). By using its backbone network for mobile data traffic, TTK intends to get discounts from mobile operators. The project is being discussed with the three leading Russian mobile operators: MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon.
Two Russian IT giants, Yandex, the leading Russian-language search engine, and Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of IT security and threat management solutions, have been ranked among the Top 50 Most Innovative Companies worldwide by U.S. business magazine Fast Company. Yandex took the 26th place in the ranking and Kaspersky Lab the 32nd.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ordered that federal agencies be provided with digital signature technology by June 2011 and that they begin using an electronic document management (EDM) system in January 2012.
The Skolkovo Innovation Prize contest received 2,318 submissions from a total of 10,681 participants. The contest, conducted in partnership with Cisco, is designed to attract talented inventors to Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub under construction near Moscow.
Softline Venture Partners, a fund owned by Softline, a leader on the Russian software licensing market, has invested an additional $500,000 in Emegamall to take a controlling stake in the company. The transaction was based on a valuation of $2 million, reports Oborot.ru, a specialized online resource.
