Sberbank, the biggest lender in Russia, and Russian search company Yandex are launching a new internet marketplace dubbed Beru that has ambitious plans to become the Amazon of Russia.
According to a report in the Financial Times citing the companies, the US$1 billion joint venture was rolled out earlier in the week and is part of Sberbank’s efforts to diversify. Russia is one of the few markets that hasn’t drawn the big technology heavy-hitters like Amazon. At the same time that there is a dearth of competition, analysts have said the economy in Russia is situated for growth, given online retail accounts for only 3 percent of the total spend. That is compared to 18% in the UK, reported the Financial Times, citing data from trade body AITC. The report noted the five leading eCommerce players in Russia control around one-quarter of the market. Beru will face competition from AliExpress Russia, which is a US$2 billion venture between Alibaba of China and Mail.ru, the search rival to Yandex in Russia. The new company, noted the report, is merging Alibaba’s current businesses in Russia into a new platform that hopes to take advantage of Mail.ru’s social media popularity. The paper noted it owns two of the most popular social media platforms in the country.
The Financial Times reported that the new venture between Yandex and Sberbank may be the beginnings of a bigger deal between the two, with two Russian media outlets reporting last week that Sberbank was in talks to acqui
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