Russian hosting providers began to enter the Turkish market

Russian hosting providers have begun to enter the Turkish market, offering virtual computing power to both local players and referred compatriots. RuVDS invested about 20 million rubles. in the launch of virtual servers in Izmir in partnership with the local Netdirekt. In July, a representative office in Istanbul was opened by the cloud provider Serverspace. To develop business in the region, one will have to compete with both Turkish IT companies and Western ones, experts say. They do not see great prospects for the development of IT business in the country, since industry, agriculture and tourism remain the key sectors of the economy there.

Hosting provider RuVDS is entering the Turkish market, planning to provide virtual computing power (servers and hosting) based on the data centers of the local provider Netdirekt in Izmir. This information was confirmed to Kommersant in both companies. “We consider compatriots living in the country and local business structures as the target audience,” said Nikita Tsaplin, founder and CEO of RuVDS. “At this stage,” the amount amounted, according to him, to about 20 million rubles.

Netdirekt (working since 2009, data centers in Izmir, Istanbul, Ankara, Frankfurt) believes that the partnership “will be mutually beneficial.” “The project will strengthen cooperation between countries in the technology industry, opening up new opportunities,” says Netdirekt technical manager Burak Yalti.

Since last year, Turkey has become one of the most popular countries for relocating Russians – more than 153 thousand citizens received a residence permit in Turkey in 2022, ranking first among citizens of other countries in this indicator. The number of foreigners legally residing in Turkey has grown by 40,000 compared to 2021 (see Kommersant on January 15). On the political plane, Turkey maintains trade and economic ties with Russia and parallel imports, and energy relations will also strengthen (see Kommersant of May 29).

RuVDS is not the first hosting provider to enter Turkey. Serverspace announced the opening of a representative office in Istanbul at the beginning of July (it began working in the Russian Federation in 2008 under the IT-Grad brand, and in 2019 opened representative offices in Belarus, the Netherlands and Kazakhstan). The provider stated that it plans to provide cloud services specifically to Turkish companies and users. “Kommersant” in Serverspace did not answer. MTS, Yandex and Selectel declined to comment, Rostelecom-DPC did not respond to a request.

When entering the markets of friendly countries, the company must carefully evaluate its capabilities and the needs of potential customers, says Sergey Zinkevich, Business Development Director at CROC Cloud Services. “You can focus on hosting local companies, but to grow your business you need a local team that includes not only technical staff, but also marketing and sales,” he says. In addition, there are already international networks of data centers and local providers on the market, he emphasizes. The provision of hosting services to Russian companies will be limited: when placing capacities abroad, companies face delays in data transfer, legal nuances, and the final cost will often be higher than when placing in the Russian Federation, Sergey Zinkevich specifies.

Turkey’s cloud market doesn’t look truly promising in the short term, adds Pavel Kulakov, founder of data center and cloud provider Oxygen. “Its main drivers are usually sectors of the economy for which digitalization is a key development factor. These are fintech, e-commerce, etc.,” he says. In Turkey, the key sectors of the economy, the expert notes, remain agriculture, industry and tourism.

Tatyana Isakova