Page 137 - RusRPTDec22

● Wildberries
The gross merchandise value (GMV) of Russian marketplace Wildberries rose by 95% on the year to 1.1 trillion rubles in January–September while sales in units advanced by 76%, the company said on November 3 in a statement. The total number of orders leaped by 83% to 954.7mn in January–September. “In July–September, the turnover increased by 95% to 420.2bn rubles, which has become a new record high,” the company said. The bestselling categories were clothes, footwear and accessories, homeware, children’s goods, and others. Wildberries invested 20.8bn rubles in development of regional infrastructure and will inject 9.4bn rubles by the end of 2022.
● Other
Qiwi reported 3Q22 IFRS results on November 18. The numbers showed
continuation of strong trends in payments.
Net revenue grew 36% y/y to Rb8.7bn. The key drivers remained – reduced competition and emerged opportunities in payments and money transfers this year, higher y/y interest rates, we believe. Payment services net revenue grew 29% y/y, while factoring and bank guarantees net revenue was up 2.4x y/y (to 8% total net revenue).
This resulted in a 47% increase in adj. EBITDA (to Rb5.6bn; 64% margin) and 73% in adj. net income (to Rb4.7bn; 54% margin), including Rb0.6 bn FX gain for the latter.
Qiwi BoD again opted not to pay quarterly dividends, considering technical hurdles.
It also decided to keep distribution of dividends under review until the sanctions regime with respect to the Russian National Settlement Depositary changes.
Qiwi also said it is in the process of acquiring a controlling stake in a digital advertising group with operations in the EMEA region. The transaction is expected to amount to less than 10% of the company’s own available cash. The transaction is subject to antitrust approval and is expected to close at the end of 4Q22.
Japan's advertisement company Dentsu Group has reached an agreement to sell its Russian assets to the local partners, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. "In August, a broad agreement was reached to sell the equity to our local partners who will operate independently going forward. As a result of negotiations, today a resolution was passed to conclude
137 RUSSIA Country Report December 2022 www.intellinews.com