Page 19 - RusRPTMar19

Wildberries is expecting to earn RUB120bn ($1.8bn) in 2018, a surge of 74% year-on-year, Kommersant daily said on December 17 citing the representatives of the company.
"This figure would make Wildberries the leading e-commerce operator in Russia for the third consecutive year and the largest online retailer overall," VTB Capital commented on December 17. The store focuses on non-food categories and covers 1.5mn SKUs from 10,500 suppliers, the bank said.
Wildberries expects the number of orders to almost double to 80mn in 2018, attributing the growth to expanding the assortment, including with premium brands. Analysts surveyed by Kommersant link the fast expansion of the online retailer to the creation of the federal delivery chain, increasing the assortment, and engaging new audiences, including TV ads.
Like many other retailers in her niche, Wildberries started out selling women's clothing from the German Otto and Quelle catalogues, but has since branched out to cover kids clothes, shoes, accessories, books, sport, electronics and home & dacha, to name a few of the categories.
Analysts say that one of the things that keeps Wildberries in the lead is the effort and investment it has put into its distribution system. The company’s main rival is Ozon Holdings where growth is being held back by an inadequate fulfilment system.
And the growth in Bakalchuk wealth is unlikely to stop there. The volume of sales of Russia’s e-commerce grew 19% in 2018 to RUB1.15bn ($17.6bn) in Russian stores and another RUB348bn ($5.3bn) that was spent in foreign online stores, up 29%.
Russia’s e-commerce is only starting to mature now and still has plenty of growing room. According to research conducted by the global market research company Nielsen, 90% of Russians have made at least one online purchase in the last ten years as a result of a growing consumer trust in online stores.
And according to the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, almost two thirds of the domestic e-commerce increase last year was delivered by growth at Wildberries and Ozon (might increase 70-80% in 2018) between them.
2.10 Moody’s mentions “unorganized regime change” for the first time
Moody's mentions “unorganized regime change” for the first time in Russian ratings note.
For the first time, Moody's Investors Service named “unorganized regime change” as one of the risks for the Russian economy in a ratings note on February 23.
Russians are becoming increasingly disgruntled as the standard of living continues to slide. The problem is that despite a controversial upgrade to 2.3% growth upgrade and a return to profit for the leading banks and companies, none of this has filtered down to street level. Real incomes were down again slightly in 2018 for the fifth year on the trot.
A pessimistic mood has settled over regular Russians, who have suffered from four years of austerity as the Kremlin sanction-proofs the economy and sacrifices prosperity for security. Trust in Putin fell to 33.4% in January – a 13-year low – while those that think Russia is going in the “wrong direction” is
now in the majority for the first time in years. 53% Russians said in December that they want the government to resign, up from 33% in November, according
19 RUSSIA Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com