The bank bets on red – Kommersant

Tinkoff Mobile, operating on the Tele2 infrastructure, is entering new regions in partnership with MTS. The first regions will be the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Stavropol Territory, and by the end of the year the bank’s operator will operate in all regions of the country. Tinkoff and MTS also plan to develop cooperation on the integration of services for clients of their ecosystems. This format will allow MTS to make money on infrastructure, and Tinkoff Mobile to strengthen its presence in regions where domestic tourism is most actively developing, experts say.

A representative of the virtual mobile operator (MVNO) Tinkoff Mobile told Kommersant that the operator is starting regional expansion in partnership with MTS: the operator is entering the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Stavropol Territory, and will appear in all regions of Russia by the end of the year. In the new regions, the MVNO will operate on the MTS infrastructure. The companies agreed on cooperation at the end of December. Under its terms, as previously reported, MTS will provide the necessary infrastructure for the operation of Tinkoff Mobile in 17 regions of Russia, including the Amur, Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod regions, the Trans-Baikal, Khabarovsk Territories, etc. It was also assumed that the partners would consider “the possibility of integrating a wide range of services ecosystems “Tinkoff” and MTS”.

Tinkoff Mobile was launched in December 2018 on Tele2 infrastructure. The company did not disclose the terms of cooperation with MTS, specifying only that the sharing of infrastructure is “only the first step.” The company also does not disclose the subscriber base, but says that in 2022 the increase in the number of subscribers was 118%. In total, according to the company itself, more than 30 million people are clients of the Tinkoff ecosystem.

MTS clarified that when choosing new territories for launching, MVNO evaluates the economic feasibility, as well as the necessary technological resources of the regions: “Depending on this, we will make decisions for specific regions.” The companies added that they are “considering their own product and economic portfolios in order to develop complementary services for customers of both ecosystems.” MegaFon and VimpelCom did not respond.

The revenue of Russian banking virtual operators (Tinkoff Mobile, SberMobile, Gazprombank Mobile, VTB Mobile) grew by 38% in 2022, to RUB 8.7 billion. (against 6.3 billion rubles in 2021), the ComNews edition calculated in May. According to TMT Consulting, the total subscriber base of MVNO operators in 2022 amounted to about 15 million subscribers. Yota also operates in this segment (on the MegaFon network), the virtual operator Transtelecom, etc. More than 20 virtual operators work on the Tele2 network, which has been developing the MVNO factory since 2016.

The fact is that Tele2 does not have its own networks in all regions of the country, so MVNOs that want to expand their presence need to negotiate with other operators in order to offer subscribers more favorable rates, explains the interlocutor of Kommersant in the telecom market: “In this In this case, companies tend to work according to the revenue sharing model. For MTS, entering this MVNO segment can be effective in terms of obtaining both additional revenue and new Tinkoff services in its ecosystem, the source says.

An increase in domestic tourism in the country can also play a key role in choosing regions for Tinkoff Mobile’s expansion, Alexey Boyko, an analyst at MForum Analytics, believes. It is profitable for large operators to provide their infrastructure with MVNOs – this is another way to monetize, says Irina Levova, director of strategic projects at the Internet Research Institute: “Thus, business models compete among operators, and each of them will try to provide as many additional services subscribers over standard communication access.

Julia Silence, Vadim Krasnikov