The hype associated with ecosystems and digital platforms is gradually disappearing both globally and in Russia: the focus is shifting to the articulating a clear benefit for a customer or business partner. In the future, the emergence of new players (including those based on telecom operators) is unlikely. Cross-country differences will persist, if not increase: the Russian market will be one of the few where multi-industry companies developing local ecosystems will continue to develop. Herewith, a scenario of “rational” coexistence of ecosystems, digital platforms and marketplaces is likely, both in terms of competition between them, and in terms of consumer choice. Thus, we can expect that there will not be any significant number of mono-customers: on the contrary, people will strive to obtain the maximum utility by consuming the products and services of several ecosystems. Within this approach, we expect continued penetration of subscription consumption models and, simultaneously, a significant share of multi-subscriptions among consumers: it will also be rational, if the ecosystems strive to complement each other (even within the same service category, for example, different filling of online cinemas with exclusive content or increased cashback for different products). Thus, in the near future, a significant part of the population of the country will be covered by the principal ecosystems fighting for customer retention (for example, within the subscription model) and not competing with each other “head-on” for tugging customers to their respective side and exclusive “rights” to them.

In the field of technological development, over the next few years there will be a convergence of telecommunications and IT infrastructure: a distributed multi-level network of backbone, edge and far edge data centers connected both with each other and with the customers by high-speed FOCL-based channels, private and public 4G/5G-networks, will not only improve the quality of the existing solutions, but will also allow to create new nationwide scalable products and services, for example, in the areas of AR, VR, cloud games, vehicle remote control. It is in order to fully live up to potential of this trend and the synergy of the assets existing in the Group that MTS allocates cloud and telecom infrastructure to a separate company (MTS Web Services, MWS).

The linear TV replacement with online cinema services continues in the video content market. Competition in this market, both globally and in the Russian market, has only intensified over the past few years, but in the future, a decrease in competition and industry consolidation cannot be ruled out. Consolidation can take place not only as leaving or merging individual players, but also, for example, as generating partnerships (for joint production of content being a key and scarce resource in this market) or using the white label model (providing services in the interests of other ecosystems or digital platforms not having their own media products). Regardless of the industry development scenario, MTS continues to develop its key business area in this field being KION, which combines a full set of linear TV channels and an online cinema.

The pandemic gave a drastic nudge to the development of remote service formats: the share of online trading in the total retail trade turnover has grown and ready-made food delivery services continue to gain popularity. A number of large companies and ecosystems in Russia are developing their trading platforms (marketplaces), the competition here remains high, while developing such projects still consumes significant resources. Thus, having this kind of business area in the ecosystem will not only have its advantages, but also disadvantages, at least in the medium term. MTS, for historical reasons, has a strong offline retail chain (RTC), in which the share of online sales is also growing rapidly, and the Group will continue its organic development both as an independent business, and as a universal omni-channel tool for sales and service in the interests of the MTS ecosystem and its partners. Continued introduction of CRM, Big Data and AI tools (developed within the Group) will allow MTS to increase sales and customer service quality cost-efficiently. Separately, in the context of retail and mobile operators, it is necessary to highlight the e-SIM technology, the potential of which has not yet been fully disclosed and due to which, in the future, it may be possible to change the structure of operations in the chain of PoS and sales, as well as to reduce the cost of purchasing physical SIM cards.

Financial services are usually one of the key elements of most ecosystems, at least in Russia. The Russian market is considered one of the most progressive and dynamic, and now, with international payment systems having left, it has almost completely switched to domestic payment solutions, which in this regard makes the market similar to the Chinese one. In the short term, we can expect further growth in the penetration of solutions based on Mir cards and Faster Payments System. From the point of view of global trends, it is necessary to single out the increasingly popular BaaS (Banking as a Service) model, within which the partners provide financial services (separately or within a cart of financial and non-financial products) to end consumers. The prospects for the widespread use of this business model in Russia are not so obvious, since the leading banks themselves are trying to expand the range of services they provide to the fullest extent possible; however, the attempts to use this concept will be probably made in the Russian Federation as well.

“Smart Home” is one of the most promising markets in Russia, which is still at the initial growth stage (compared to a number of other large countries). Generally speaking, this market is still too segmented — many large companies operating in the consumer electronics markets are building their own ecosystems not always compatible with each other, although the unification of protocols and standards would not only be convenient for users, but would also increase revenue and profit for all players. A certain hope in this matter can be given by the Matter project and family of protocols of the same name, if they are successful. However, in any case, the main obstacle to the growth of penetration of Smart Home products lies not in the presence of unified protocols and compatibility of equipment from different manufacturers, but in the absence of a selection of convenient and functioning use cases bringing real benefits to the customer. Thus, statistics on using Smart Speakers in a number of countries shows that the main use cases are primarily related to listening to music, searching for information and content, and not only and not so much to controlling Smart Home devices. Herewith, the growth in the penetration of typical Smart Home devices (light bulbs, sockets, cameras) in a number of developed markets has already stopped at a rather low level. It can be expected that a new breakthrough will be made once new use cases are found. Herewith, it is likely that typical mass use cases will be different for different countries: something in great demand in the US (for example, a heating/air conditioning control system for private homes providing energy savings) may be of little interest to an average Russian.

Significant changes are expected in the digital advertising market. Large-scale changes thereon will be caused by the concurrence of a number of factors. The ban on cookies in the Chrome browser and the new privacy features in iOS are directly transforming the digital advertising market. The willingness of young people to share data about themselves creates long-term motivation for elaborating new tools for more precise targeting. Marketing is actively shifting into social and entertainment mechanics (including through UGC platforms). An additional Russian market feature was the withdrawal or ban of a number of foreign players, which will provide new opportunities for local companies (for example, RuTube, VK) in the advertising market. MTS will also increase its presence on it, primarily by developing MTS Marketer, as well as, for instance, by introducing an advertising model in WASD.TV. It is also important to note that, in a broad sense, the possibility of targeted sales of additional services (own and partner) to the customers underlies the MTS ecosystem construction ideology.