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bne Tech
April 12, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 26
Russia's RDIF plans internet projects in Turkey with Yandex
Russia's Fund for Direct Investment (RDIF) and internet major Yandex discusses deals and joint projects in Turkey, the head of the fund Kirill Dmitriev told the press, while announcing the creation of €900mn Russo- Turkish investment fund.
"Yandex has a successful search engine business, good transportation solutions. We see that on
the basis of what Yandex has in Turkey we can improve Russia's technological presence in Turkey and other Arab countries," Dmitriev said as cited by Reuters.
Russia's growing digital economy sees emergence of major financial-technological clusters, such as Mail.ru-MegaFon-VTB Bank and Yandex-Sberbank. The former seems to have a good grip on Chinese development direction, with a number of cooperation deals announced with the e-commerce major Alibaba.
Previously Yandex.Market and Sberbank chose
a commercial strategy for its online marketplace that focuses on developing a cross-border trade platform that uses non-Chinese suppliers of good quality, among them also Turkish suppliers.
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Yandex.Market chairman: “The Russian market offers huge opportunities and is very open to foreign players”
EWDN in Moscow
A former top executive of Casino Group, a major French retail group, and advisor to the CEOof Æon Group, Japan’s largest retailer, Gabriel Naouri
is Chairman of the Board of Yandex.Market. This Yandex-Sberbank joint venture, agreed in 2017, owns three e-commerce platforms: Yandex Market, a popular e-commerce aggregation and price com- parison platform launched in 2002; Beru, an inte- grated marketplace for domestic purchases; and Bringly, another marketplace designed for cross- border orders, the two latter being launched just months ago.
Naouri shared with East-West Digital News his views about the Russian e-commerce market, its challenges, opportunities, and accessibility to foreign players. This interview is an excerpt
from EWDN’s international report on Russian e-commerce, which will be released in June 2019.
What is your vision of the Russian e-commerce market and its prospects? How does it compare with that of France or other countries.
The Russian market offers huge opportunities. With a population of 150mn people and an Internet penetration of nearly 80%, the potential is unique. Now is the right time to build market share. As a comparison, the top four players account for 75- 80% of the market in the US, China or France. In Russia it is less than 25%. This fragmentation of- fers a unique opportunity for Yandex.Market.
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