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April 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 3
"They need to either combine their users in one product and focus on it, or offer different products based on their interests," he said.
Meanwhile, regardless of user numbers, a messaging app could be successfully monetized.
Uncertain prospects for Ukraine's IT industry
Ukraine's IT sector accounts for 20% of all service exports and is the third top export industry. In 2019, Ukrainian IT exports amounted to $4.2bn. But repeating that performance this year is impossible.
Working remotely
The biggest impact of the lockdown restrictions introduced in Ukraine in mid-March was that most IT firms switched to working remotely.
Konstantin Vasyuk, executive director of IT Ukraine, an association uniting over 50 companies that are responsible for roughly one half of the Ukrainian IT sector's revenue, told Ekonomichna Pravda that all personnel of the association's member companies were working remotely, except for employees in charge of maintaining the tech infrastructure.
ЕPAM Ukraine currently has 98% of employees working remotely, while another local major IT firm, SoftServe, has only 200 people in the office out of the total staff of 7,000.
"We continue to provide services to our customers and we have beefed up our communications as openness and proper communications are vital
at a time when everyone is isolated from each other," Yuri Antonyuk, head of EPAM in Central and Eastern Europe, was quoted as saying
by nv.ua.
"Monetization options abound," Maria Sukhanova, an analyst at BCS Global Markets, told Kommersant. "It could be ads or extra paid content, such as stickers. But in any case, the relaunch of ICQ is unlikely to become a major revenue source for the entire company."
Business as usual (for now)
Industry insiders say they don't expect any short- term layoff or pay cuts, despite the wide-ranging coronavirus pandemic, Ekonomichna Pravda reported.
"I can assure you that the remote work mode and flexibility of operation processes have always been typical for the IT sector," Antonyuk said. "An IT specialist works equally effectively remotely and in the office. This means that our customers will feel no difference in our operation processes."
"We are constantly monitoring the market situation," added Yaroslav Lyubinets, chairman of the board of SoftServe. "So far, we haven't felt a decline in orders, but some customers are delaying [the] launch of their projects."
According to Lyubinets, the head hunting process at the company hasn't stopped.
"A range of specialisations in the contemporary IT industry is broad, and a search for talent will be always needed," he explains. "However, now vacancies will be mostly filled internally or by optimisation of teams."
Optimization in progress
Still, the global economic downturn is likely to take its toll on Ukraine's IT industry in the longer term, and companies are already beginning to find ways to cut their expenses.
"We haven't yet felt ramifications of the pandemic," Vasyuk says. "Most likely, it will happen over the next two to three months. But