Svyaznoy posts strong nine months with financial services growth

Russia-based mobile phone retailer Svyaznoy has reported that revenue doubled to RUB195.2 billion (USD6.4 billion) for the nine months to 30 September. This figure included VAT from mobile phone and digital technology sales, mobile operator and financial services payments. The highest growth occurred in the financial services category, up 279% to RUB105.5 billion (USD3.5 billion).

The number of mobile phone units sold rose 10% to 6.35 million handsets while monetary sales increased 5% to RUB26.3 billion (USD862.3 million). Sales of portable computers - laptops, notebooks and tablets - more than doubled to 198,600 units. Laptop sales rose five-fold while notebooks were up 49%. Turnover from payments to mobile phone operators increased 33% to RUB41.2 million (USD1.4 million). Between January and September, Svyaznoy stores carried out 225 million transactions, up 24% on the same period in 2010. Online sales including VAT jumped 86% to RUB2.1 billion (USD68.9 million). Regarding the store network, the company opened 591, including 35 in the new 'open' format, and closed 263. At the end of the period the number of Svyaznoy stores had risen 22% to 2,610 in 242 cities, including 38 'open' and 259 Svyaznoy-3 outlets.

Svyaznoy President Denis Ludkovski said: “For the past three quarters we demonstrated excellent results: the number of transactions in the Svyaznoy network rose 24%. It is also worth noting that our product range diversification and expansion strategy has paid off: we have observed rising sales in our core product group - mobile phones - as well as in digital technology product categories. The turnover in the online store also grew and exceeded RUB2 billion (USD65 million). The financial payments category is also growing strongly - our revenue from financial services, such as loan repayments and Svyaznoy Bank card deposits have risen 10%.”