Page 104 - RUSRptOct18

software and network equipment at a joint venture RTK - Setevye Tekhnologii (RTK - Network Technologies) set up with Nokia, Kommersant daily reported on September 24 citing unnamed sources. Reportedly Rostelecom counts on import substitution drive to make the JV the first large domestic player on network equipment market. In 2019-2022 Nokia is ready to invest RUB10bn ($152mn) in the joint venture, which is 51% controlled by Rostelecom and 49% by Nokia. Other Russian telecom majors have strategic partnerships with foreign tech majors, but reports claims that Rostelecom's would be the first focused on localisation. Ericsson has strategic partnerships with VEON (former Vimpelcom) and MTS mobile operators on 5G and the internet of things technologies . VEON also has agreements with Huawei, while another major operator MegaFon has a cooperation memorandum with Nokia. The technologies developed will be primarily used by Rostelecom, but could be demanded by other large state corporation. The products will be relates to operating data processing centres, virtual corporate networks, the internet of things, and new generation mobile networks. Analysts surveyed by Kommersant o n the deal remind that the share of digital revenues in Rostelecom top line already exceeded 50% in 2018, with such services as cloud solutions jumping by 34%.
E-commerce marketplace of Russian internet major Yandex will provide customers access to Turkish merchandise through Hepsiburada.com , the company said. After the launch of the Yandex.Market platform in October in partnership with Russia's largest bank Sberbank the platform will also gain access to more than 20,000 merchants and 2,000 brands from Turkey. Hepsiburada currently has approximately 21mn active monthly users. The Russian and Turkish companies will also launch a logistics solution using DPD to deliver goods in Russia within 4-7 days of purchase.
Russian Internet major Yandex has complied with the recent demand of the Gazprom Media holding and removed links to pirated content from its Yandex search engine. However, the company does not admit to facilitating privacy and demands Gazprom Media brings another Internet major Mail.ru Group to the court case, Vedomosti d aily said on September 17. In the first case of its kind in Russia, in August Yandex.Video streaming service risked being blocked if it failed to remove links to illegal copies of TV series produced by Gazprom Media holding. This was the first time the large-scale blocking of one of Russia's leading Internet players over piracy has been threatened. Russia is the second biggest consumer of digital pirated content in the world with 20.6bn visits to pirate sites in 2017. However, Yandex now reportedly argues that it is technically impossible to comply with Gazprom Media demands, as it cannot control or check the ownership of rights for content on websites that appear on the search engine. The search engine is not placing the content online, and thus cannot be made liable for breach of ownership rights, and argues that the demands imposed by Gazprom Media through court are impossible to comply with. At the same time representatives of the company told Vedomosti that an alternative solution to curb pirated content in Runet is being developed by Yandex, to be presented soon.
Russian online platform for freelance and self-employed workers YouDo raised $17mn from a group of investors, Kommersant d aily reported on September 18. Previously in May reports claimed that Russian mobile major MTS and Chinese internet group Alibaba are among the main investors for YouDo, and Kommersant c laims that MTS became the main investor with $12mn. The rest was reportedly provided by existing YouDo shareholders,
104 RUSSIA Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com