After February 24, Russian telecom operators faced a serious problem in the supply of equipment for the renovation and construction of new networks. Market participants expected that problems in the operation of networks may arise at the end of summer. How operators manage to keep the situation normal, about the possibilities of purchasing equipment in India and Israel, as well as about what prevents the launch of a new 5G communication standard in the country, MegaFon CEO Khachatur Pombukhchan told Kommersant. Choose the main one.

Since taking office a year ago, Pombukhchan has rebuilt the team, revised the company's strategy and approach to its implementation. MegaFon focused on telecommunications services and abandoned the development of some non-core assets.

MegaFon was the first to implement and launched VoLTE technology in all regions in 2021. The company is a leader in VoWi-Fi technology, and will soon introduce it at the federal level. This is an opportunity to make calls from deaf rooms, basements, where there is a weak mobile signal, but there is Wi-Fi.

The company is launching a new brand platform. In commercials, instead of the usual phrase “MegaFon starts with you”, the slogan “MegaFon is the number one operator” will be replaced.

"MegaFon" decided not to disclose financial performance, as now "too much volatility in the market." It greatly affects the underlying indicators that analysts are used to seeing in quarterly reports.

Moscow is the largest market in Russia with the highest subscribers' requirements for the quality of services, so operators pay a lot of attention to this region, then they look at million-plus cities: St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Volgograd, Krasnodar, Rostov, Yekaterinburg.

The company managed to prepare, it created a certain stock of equipment. Spent these few months, including working to improve the efficiency of the equipment installed on the network.

MegaFon CEO Khachatur PombukhchanWe are looking at Indian, Chinese, Israeli manufacturers. The equipment is there and available. Logistics chains have become more complex, maybe more expensive, and contracting has become longer. It must take into account, among other things, sanctions risks for both sides, but this does not mean that it is impossible to build and develop.

From the point of view of traffic consumption, there were no serious anomalies in the network. When part of Western resources was closed in Russia, there were small drawdowns in traffic, which then, as a rule, were restored by a flow to other services.

Using a VPN does not increase network load, but it does affect the customer experience.

There have always been hacker attacks, and they continue to this day, just on a larger scale.

Now the company is working "not bad" with the efficiency of its own retail, and will continue to develop it. The second story is how to offer people the equipment they used to buy now. Some players left the market, other brands took their place. New names have appeared that are still unfamiliar to people, but they are beginning to eat away a piece of the market from Apple and Samsung.

In 2021, MegaFon bought a 65% stake in Revo Charge from USM Telecom. It has been operating on the market for several years; it is a single distribution center for retail companies that are part of the USM holding perimeter.

Now the main focus is direct contracts, supplies of equipment as part of direct imports, in particular from China.

LTE will be the go-to format for the next few years, Pombukhchan said. If 5G is more about technological capabilities, about unmanned transport control, remote surgical operations, then for ordinary users, the LTE standard is now quite enough.

There was no outflow of IT specialists in the company. The CEO believes that this is because they have good access to technology and at the same time earn good money in this market.

There are no special grounds for the growth, but the same is true for a significant drawdown. It is likely that operators' profitability will remain approximately at the same level, it may slightly go down or up, it will depend on some changes related to adaptation to a changing market.

During the pandemic, it was more difficult to organize interaction, but at the same time there were all the opportunities to implement this interaction. Here it's the other way around. Everyone rallied, understand the seriousness of the moment.

bbabo.Net