Page 154 - RusRPTFeb23

well as local private and institutional players. However, similarly to IKEA and other specialised retailers pulling out of the country, it is unlikely that Decathlon would be able to sell all of its Russian business all at once. But the company is reportedly ready to dispose of real estate assets separately, according to RBC sources.
9.2.7 TMT corporate news
● Yandex
● VK
● Ozon
● Wildberries ● Other
In 2022 the data traffic in the Telegram messenger in Russia for the first time topped that of WhatsApp (owned by Meta, banned in Russia as “extremist”), Vedomosti daily reported citing the estimates of the Big Four mobile operators MegaFon, VimpecCom, Mobile TeleSystems and Tele2. In June 2022 Telegram messenger of Russian internet guru Pavel Durov doubled with over 40mn new subscribers since the February 24 military invasion of Ukraine amid the blocking of foreign social networks in Russia. The trend continued in early 2023, with the share of Telegram exceeding 60-80% of the total user traffic volume and posting about 70% year on year. The messenger is expected to top the market in terms of active users this year. Notably, the spike in popularity of Telegram is still due to Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, as the users turned to the messenger’s real-time information channels and also boosted traffic on downloading videos and other content. As followed by bne IntelliNews, in 2020 the messenger made a surprise comeback on the Russian business scene, as the messenger app has been unblocked in Russia after a two-year stand-off with the security services and legislators. Notably, the state sovereign Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) previously bought part of $150mn of the bonds most recently issued by the messenger, which raised concerns over Durov's willingness to co-operate with the Kremlin.
154 RUSSIA Country Report February 2023 www.intellinews.com