Page 42 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

42 I Central Europe
a comeback in the early months of 2020
– until the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic stopped it in its tracks.
Early indications of how badly retail
in the country has been affected can
be gauged from payment card figures. Payments made with credit cards and debit cards declined by 30.8% weak
on week to a value of TRY13.6bn ($1.9bn) in the week ending March
27, according to data from the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT). Expenditures on supermarket items dropped to TRY4bn from TRY5.3bn
a week earlier. People spent some TRY370mn on clothing, down from TRY1.63bn two weeks prior.
Recent weeks have shown payment card spending picking up as more people isolating themselves from the pandemic at home get used to shopping online.
Google’s community mobility data, meanwhile, showed that visits to groceries and pharmacies in Turkey plunged 39% from February 16 to March 29.
Turkey’s consumer confidence index fell 5.8 points to 54.9 in April, the country’s official statistical authority TUIK said on April 22.
Less consumer buoyancy was also indicated as Turkey’s white goods market contracted by 9% y/y in March, according to data from business group TURKBESD.
bne June 2020
bne:Tech
Contents
Top stories
Russia’s top retail and tech companies join forces to hunt for innovations in the rest of the world 2 Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019 4 Russian video streaming platforms
gain speed 5 Cloud services take off in Russia 6 SEMrush to SEO success 8
Leaders 9
Russia’s internet giant Yandex
announces growing and more
diversified revenues in 2019 10 Russian telecom major Rostelecom misses on earnings in 4Q19, cash
flow solid 12
Investment 13
World Bank approves $35mn project
to modernise Kyrgyz tax administration and statistical system 13 Romanian online home decoration
retailer raises €3.5mn in bonds 14 Russian billionaires Abramovich, Gutseriev, said to invest in Telegram
crypto project TON 14 Russian fund Da Vinci Capital gets
€30mn from Germany’s DEG to invest
in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan 15
Fintech & E-commerce 16
Russian e-commerce major
Wildberries to add self-employed
vendor products to offering 16 Russian Dixy retailer to launch online sales with Ozon 17 Valuation of Sistema’s e-commerce
asset Ozon boosted to $1.8bn 17
Telecom 19
Makedonski Telekom’s net profit
up 6% y/y in 2019 19 Romanian telco Digi grows by double
digit rates in 2019 19 Russia could postpone 5G rollout
from 2022 to 2024 20
NIBs 21
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March 2020
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Russia’s top retail and tech companies
join forces to hunt for innovations in
the rest of the world
BAs Russia’s retail and tech sectors consolidate, the leading companies are turned their gaze outwards to hunt for
bne:Tech
new technology and innovation.
See page 2
Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019
In 2019, the venture capital and private equity funding volume for Ukrainian and Ukrainian-founded tech startups reached $544mn (up from $323mn in 2018 and $265mn in 2017), says AVentures Capital’s latest industry report ”DealBook of Ukraine”,
reports Adrien Henni of Ukraine Digital News. See page 4
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In the month, some 504,000 units were sold on the local market. Exports also dropped 9% y/y, falling to 1.35mn units.
“The impact of the coronavirus outbreak will be felt much more strongly in April,” cautioned Can Dincer, head of TURKBESD.
On another consumer front, measures brought in to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Turkey triggered such a sharp drop in fruit and vegetable prices, with many Turks unwilling to mingle in shops and outdoor markets, that Turkish farmers have been considering cutting spring output. Turkey is among the world’s top exporters of fresh produce such as tomatoes, apricots, tangerines, aubergines and peppers, and its farmers have thus also been hit by COVID-19 border restrictions. In March, as farmers prepared for the critical April and May planting season months, fruit and vegetable prices dropped 6.6% y/y, with some prices down by more than 30% y/y.
Finally, Migros, one of Turkey’s largest supermarket chains, in April hired 5,000 additional personnel to meet a sharp spike in online orders caused by social distancing pressures amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“We have seen our online orders quadruple. We have also increased the number of provinces to which we offer home delivery services to 75 from 60 in the face of the surging demand,” said Ozgur Tort, the Migros CEO.
Croatia
Retail trade turnover in Croatia slumped in both monthly and annual terms in March as the coronavirus pandemic
and the government lockdown hit
trade, data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS) showed.
In annual terms, the sector saw its sharpest contraction since January 2010, when the country was in the depths of recession, falling by a real 7.0% y/y.
However, the fall was not uniform across different segments of the retail sector: retail trade turnover of non- food products (except automotive fuels and lubricants) decreased by 17.3%
as non-essential shops were closed, while the retail trade turnover of food, beverages and tobacco grew by 8.5%, reflecting the panic buying of essential foodstuffs. DZS data revealed strong increases in turnover at supermarkets and pharmacies.
North Macedonia
North Macedonia’s retail sales also dropped by a real 8.8% y/y in March, reversing a 6.3% y/y increase the month before, statistics office data indicated on April 30. Retail trade in food, beverages and tobacco increased by a real 1.8% y/y in March, while non-food sales (except fuel) were 13.1% y/y lower in real terms.