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FinTech
May, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Russia's mobile major MTS increases stake in Ozon to 16.7%
IntelliNews Pro
One of Russia's "big four" mobile operators Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) increased the share in Cyprus-registered Ozon Holdings from 13.65% to 16.66%, Vedomosti daily said on May 14. Ozon is one of Russia's largest and oldest e-commerce platforms, first starting operations in 1998 as online bookstore.
Most recently there has been a notable ramp-up of investment activity around Russian online platform that could serve as basis for development of integrated online business ecosystems.
MegaFon mobile operator has just established
a joint venture MF Technologies to control Mail. ru internet major, together with country's third largest bank Gazprombank and USM Holdings of billionaire and tech investor Alisher Usmanov. Russia's largest bank Sberbank and internet major Yandex announced finalising the Yandex. Market deal.
Reportedly MTS acquired two minority stakes in Ozon, 0.35% acquired from former general manager Bernard Luke and 2.65% from Index Ventures fund. Previously in March MTS spent RUB1.15bn on additional share issue of Ozon of 2.5% of share capital.
Previous reports suggested that Ozon could issue more shares worth RUB3.5bn to be acquired by MTS and Baring Vostok Capital Partners.
The company was founded in 1998, with an initial focus on books, CDs and DVDs. The site enlarged
its positioning in the mid-2000s – following the example of Amazon – with consumer electronics, cameras and mobile phones and later added children’s goods and travel products.
Ozon launched Ozon Travel in 2009; acquired Sapato.ru, a major online retailer of shoes and accessories, in 2012; and took control of Litres, the Russian e-book leader, two years later.
The company has also developed an in-house fulfilment and delivery network, which encompasses several hundreds of cities in Russia with more than 2,500 pick-up points.
A major part of Ozon’s successive findings have gone to developing further these logistics capacities – and the capital injections announced today will be no exception. Ozon now claims 3.2mn unique buyers. Ozon has developed one of the largest e-commerce logistics networks across Russia.
According to EWDN’s Russian E-Commerce Report, online sales in 2016 exceeded $26bn, growing more than 20% year-on-year. Included in this figure are some $16bn for physical goods and $10bn for online travel, according to Data Insight.
The cross-border segment is the fastest growing, up 26% by value and 80% by the number of parcels and small packages, and exceeded $4bn for physical goods alone, according to Russian Post and industry association NAMO. The 2017 numbers are not available yet.