Contents
Trends tell about the main conclusions and figures from the RAEC study “Runet Economy 21/22”
State and society
According to Mediascope, the audience of Runet in April 2022 amounted to 80% population over 12 years of age 97,5 million people. For the mobile Internet, these figures were 73,8% and 90,2 million people. 94 million users access the Web every day.
The main purposes of using the Internet in 2021, according to a Deloitte survey, were communication, information search, content viewing and shopping. Throughout 2021, WhatsApp* was the main messenger, but at the beginning of 2022 Telegram overtook it – according to Beeline analysts, the volume of user traffic in Telegram in March 2022 was 15 times higher than in WhatsApp.
After blocking Facebook* and Instagram* in our country in March 2022, VKontakte came out on top in terms of the number of active authors — 3,9 million per day compared to 1,1 million on Instagram. In addition, the number of VPN service installations has increased significantly this month.
The RAEC also highlights the trend of subscriptions to ecosystems: 20 million people use them in our country. Banks (Sberbank, Tinkoff Bank), IT companies (Yandex, VKontakte, MegaFon), retail (X5 Retail Group, Ozon, Wildberries) have their own ecosystems. Large ecosystems have become the main buyers of startups.
Analysts note that in 2021, tax revenues from the IT industry increased by ₽75 billion compared to the previous year. The industry support packages adopted in 2020-2021 played a role in this — in particular, tax incentives, which were used by more than 6 Russian IT companies.
* Belong to the company Meta – recognized as extremist and banned in our country.
Marketing and advertising
The volume of the advertising and marketing segment in 2021 grew by 24% and amounted to ₽432,5 billion. In total, television and the Internet account for almost 90% of the entire advertising market. At the same time, targeted advertising in social networks has become the most popular advertising format.
RAEC identifies several main marketing and advertising market trends in 2021:
- dominance of performance-tools;
- increased requirements for privacy and protection of personal data;
- the use of artificial intelligence to increase the effectiveness of advertising and improve user experience;
- the metaverse as a new platform for advertising.
In March 2022, the use of popular foreign platforms, including Google, Meta**, Criteo, TikTok services, significantly decreased or ceased. Most advertisers switched to alternative platforms: Yandex.Direct, MyTarget, social networks and Telegram.
Influence marketing remains one of the main advertising areas, but the restriction and ban on the operation of foreign social networks in the Russian Federation significantly affects bloggers. 78% of influencers surveyed by TWIGA PR and TWIGA SMM in March 2022 agree with this.
RAEC analysts predict a 2022% drop in the online advertising segment in 50 due to refusals or postponements of advertising campaigns by Russian advertisers, the exit of foreign companies from the market and a decrease in the number of “top” advertising sites.
** The Meta company is recognized as extremist and banned in our country.
Finance and Trade
The volume of the e-commerce segment in Runet in 2021 grew by 44% compared to 2020 and amounted to ₽8652,4 billion. 80% of our country aged 16-55 shop online at least once a month.
The authors of the study note that online shopping has become a daily routine, delivery has become faster, and household appliances, electronics, clothing and footwear remain leaders in product categories. Most of the purchases (62%) came from marketplaces such as Ozon, Wildberries, Yandex.Market, Aliexpress Our Country, and SberMegaMarket.
The fastest growing product category in 2021 is food. The growth of online sales of products amounted to 159%, and the market volume reached ₽329 billion.
According to RAEC experts, by the end of 2022, the e-commerce segment will grow by 15%. Growth will be slow under the influence of several negative factors: the withdrawal of foreign suppliers from the Russian market, the reduction in exports of goods and services abroad, the decline in household incomes, and the withdrawal of Russian companies dependent on imported raw materials and materials from the market.
One of the government’s steps to support e-commerce could be the lifting of restrictions on the online sale of certain goods – alcohol and prescription drugs.
Infrastructure and communications
The infrastructure segment for 2021 added 34% and reached ₽204,3 billion. The pandemic trend for cloud services is maintained due to the development of hybrid work formats. The state cloud infrastructure is developing. The number of sites is growing – 5 million domains are registered in the .RU domain zone.
The HSE ISSEK has calculated that the most demanded digital technology in our country is cloud services. They are used by 25,7% of Russian organizations. The volume of information that users transmit via the Internet is also growing: in 2021, this indicator added 127,3% compared to 2020 and amounted to 107,7 billion GB.
In 2022, analysts expect the infrastructure segment to grow by 17%. It will be adversely affected by restrictions on the supply of imported technological components, including semiconductors, the withdrawal of foreign players from the Russian market and the refusal of companies to use cloud services.
The support factor for the infrastructure segment, according to RAEC analysts, may be the suspension or cancellation of a number of requirements of the Yarovaya package related to the storage of Internet traffic.
Media and Entertainment
The volume of the digital content segment in 2021 added 24% and reached ₽153,4 billion. Video games remain the largest market in the segment, although growth has slowed compared to 2020 due to the lifting of many pandemic restrictions and a small number of new releases.
The total audience of audiovisual streaming services grew by 8% to 86 million users. It is user payments that have become the main income of OTT services. Ivi, Kinopoisk, Okko, Netflix, Wink and Megogo were among the top popular online movie theaters in 2021. online cinemas released 74 of their own projects in 2021, up from just 20 a year earlier.
Yandex.Music has become the most popular music service — it is used by 59% of users surveyed by Deloitte Russia. Followed by Spotify (36%), Boom (33%), YouTube Music (33%) and Apple Music (14%).
In 2022, the digital content segment awaits 60% drop – the departure of foreign platforms (from Netflix to Spotify and Wargaming), difficulties with paying for purchases and subscriptions with Russian cards, a general reduction in the volume of content (the departure of foreign film studios, the unavailability of foreign music on Russian streaming sites, etc.) will affect.
At the same time, the consumption of pirated content is increasing – in early March 2022, traffic to torrent trackers increased by 21%. The industry is expected to focus on its own projects of Russian streaming services, state support for content producers and the transition of users to domestic services.
Cybersecurity
RTM Group estimates the total damage to the Russian economy from cybercrime in 2021 at ₽150 billion. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, in 2021 it was registered 517,7 thousand crimes using ICT, of which 25,3% were disclosed.
The main target of the hackers, according to Positive Technologies, was the Russian aerospace industry. It accounted for 31% of all registered attacks. This is followed by state-owned enterprises (23%), IT companies (23%), military-industrial complex enterprises (15%) and fuel and energy complex (8%).
75% of cyberattacks were targeted – among the main goals, experts name the theft of confidential information and disruption of the company. In the main “risk zone” of attacks on individuals and attacks on organizations are personal and account data, payment card data, trade secrets, correspondence and medical information.
Spending on information security in 2021 increased by 8% and amounted to ₽98,7 billion. The main role in the growth of the market is played by the public sector, which thus implements the FI Information Security program. But for businesses, according to Kaspersky Lab, investments in cybersecurity are in the top 3 priorities.
Education and personnel
The RAEC calculated that the number of IT personnel in our country in 2021 was about 3 million people. These are people of different specialties: software developers, DevOps specialists, web designers, UX / UI designers, product and project managers, data scientists, game developers, testers, content creators and many others.
However, in 2021, about 1 million specialists were missing. The situation worsened in February-March 2022 due to a wave of relocation of personnel abroad. They left the country in the “first wave” 50-55 thousand IT specialists. According to Habr.Career, every third IT specialist was looking for a job with relocation in March.
Analysts at HeadHunter emphasize that the biggest deficit is observed among artificial intelligence developers. In this area, the competition is less than 2 people per seat. In the field of information security, according to Sberbank, there is also a shortage of about 20 thousand employees.
Expectations about the future among IT professionals are divided into negative and positive approximately equally: 46% of employees are pessimistic, while 42,5% see new opportunities for IT. 46,6% of employees believe in the successful development of the IT industry, and 40% expect it to decline.
The share of online education amounted to 2,6% of the entire education market in our country. The greatest penetration online is in language training, additional professional education and additional education for schoolchildren.