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June 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 17
Russia's X5 Group keeps boosting online sales
Russia's largest traditional retailer X5 Group has continued its rapid expansion into the e-grocery segment amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown, boosting online sales and express deliveries by 40% month on month and 7-fold year on year in May 2020 to RUB2.4bn ($34.9mn).
As reported by bne IntelliNews, last month X5 emerged as Russia's largest e-grocer, with Magnit rival trying to catch up with its digital transformation and testing delivery solutions.
Out of May online sales RUB1.7bn was attributed to its online sales platform Perekrestok.ru
and RUB0.67bn to express delivery services.
The online sales represent less than 5% of the total revenue (3% of the total sales come from e-grocery in Moscow and Moscow region alone).
"X5 efficiently [has] used the quarantine to strengthen its online business, launch express delivery and enhance online platforms, which allows it to build a reliable base for further growth," BCS Global Markets commented on June 5.
Three out of five of the Perekrestok.ru online supermarket’s dark stores are already reporting positive Ebitda, while new facilities in Vidnoye and Nizhny Novgorod are expected to achieve positive financials ahead of schedule.
IB loans €70m to Estonia’s Eesti Energa to improve broadband internet access
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending Estonia’s state-owned power utility Eesti Energia €70mn for the development of a fibre access network for broadband internet for 266,000 households, the EU’s investment bank said.
The loan will finance upgrading the quality
of internet access in areas with insufficient broadband connectivity and limited broadband services, the EIB said. The upgraded fibre network will enable download speeds of 1 gigabyte per second (Gbps).
Following the upgrades, the network will be offered on an open-access basis to any retail provider of broadband services by the end of 2023.
The loan’s tenor is maximum 14 years with an availability period of three years, the EIB said.
“Estonia has already made name for itself as
a very digitalised country and we are happy to help push the boundaries of broadband internet access in the country even further,” the EIB’s vice president Thomas Ostros said in a statement.
At 30%, Estonia was the 13th best OECD member state in terms of percentage of fibre connections in total fixed broadband as of June 2019, the OECD said in its March broadband access update. The top three were Korea, Japan and Lithuania, the latter’s ratio exceeding 70%.
Cybersecurity software firm Avast becomes first Czech company to join London Stock Exchange’s FTSE 100 Index
Avast enters FTSE 100 just two years after listing on LSE as coronavirus pandemic’s devastation of travel industry causes cruise giant Carnival and budget airline Easyjet to drop out.
The Czech cybersecurity software company
Avast has become the first Czech company to
join the London Stock Exchange FTSE 100 index, announced the global index provider FTSE Russell in its June 2020 quarterly review.
The update of the FTSE 100 index saw the exit of several firms hit by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as cruise company Carnval, budget airline Easyjet and aerospace components producer Meggitt dropped out.
Joining the index alongside Avast, which entered the LSE in May 2018, were home-repairs company Homeserve and DIY group Kingfisher, as well as gambling company GVC.
“This FTSE reshuffle is highly reflective of