The EBITDA of Euroset, Russia’s leading mobile retailer, reached 8.37 billion rubles (approx. $279 million) in 2010, up 88% from 2009. During the same period, the company’s net profit grew almost fivefold (+385%), to 5.58 billion rubles, while its revenues increased by just 12.2%, reaching 61.91 billion rubles (approx. $2 billion).
PingWin Software Ltd. announced on March 14 its membership in the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit consortium dedicated to Linux development. PingWin Software is the first Russian company to join the Foundation.
Ozon.Travel, a specialized arm of leading Russian e-commerce player Ozon.ru, announced last Monday a twentyfold increase of its annual gross booking sales, from 44 million rubles in 2009, the year of launch, to 898 million rubles in 2010 ($1.47 million and $29.9 million, respectively).
The Russian Supreme Arbitration Court settled the dispute between leading Russian television channel RTR and social network Vkontakte on the liability of the social network for the transfer and use of unlicensed content on the site. The court ruled that Vkontakte is not responsible for its users’ copyright violations.
After compiling a list of the “Top 50 Most Innovative Companies” worldwide last month, which included Yandex and Kaspersky Lab, U.S. business magazine Fast Company has now issued a ranking of the “Ten Most Innovative Companies in Russia.”
Explay, a leading Russian manufacturer of car navigators, announced last week its launch of a navigator that supports the two satellite-based location systems, GPS and GLONASS.
Qiwi’s offline and online payment systems can no longer be used to replenish the accounts of a dozen Russian electronic currencies, as of March 15. The affected e-currencies include Yandex.Dengi – one of the two leading Russian e-currencies; MoneyMail – the e-currency of Mail.ru, a leading web portal; and a range of minor e-currencies.
The М2М activities of Russia’s three leading mobile operators are developing quickly. At MTS, one of the three operators, M2M-related revenues could grow almost sevenfold in 2011, compared with the previous year, generating 1.7% of the company’s overall revenues, estimates an unnamed internal source. According to this source, that percentage could exceed 3% in 2013.
Access Industries, a US based industrial holding with international assets owned by prominent Russian-American businessman Leonard Blavatnik, has acquired a stake in Vigoda.ru (in Russian: “Advantage”), one of Russia’s numerous local deal sites.
Rusnano has signed an agreement to invest in the production of LTE base stations in the Tomsk region, with Mikran, a Tomsk-based company, and the local administration as its partners. Nokia Siemens Networks equipment will be used for production.
Russian telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor announced last Friday changes in the conditions of four tenders to allocate GSM frequencies, to be held in April.
Sberbank and VTB bank have been announced the winners of an open tender, held by the interregional telecom operator North-Western Telecom, for loan contracts worth a total of $528 million, the company reports.
