Russian Post gets people talking
The Russian Post, already the vendor of mobile phone contracts, plans to start selling budget mobile phones at its branches. At present, the Russian Post is in talks with vendors such as Huawei about direct supplying phones that will have a retail price of no more than RUB 1,000 ($33).
Phones are to be available to purchase from all 42,000 post offices across Russia by the end of Q1 2010. This measure will be introduced with the aim of subsidising the loss-making areas of the Russian Post business, which are regulated by the state.
In December 2009, Russian Post signed a federal contract with Megafon to sell the operator’s mobile phone contracts through all of its offices in Russia. It also sells MTS and Tele2 contracts in some of its offices.
According to preliminary data, Russian Post revenues in 2009 amounted to RUB 95bn ($3.1bn), half of which was generated through services not subject to state regulation. The company’s debt was estimated to be worth RUB 12bn ($394.9m).
