Russia is a federal republic constitutional state consisting of 22 autonomous republics, 46 states, 9 border regions, 4 autonomous regions, 1 autonomous region and 3 federal cities. 55% of the residents in Russia believe in religion, of which 91% believe in Orthodoxy, 5% believe in Islam, 1% believe in Catholicism and Judaism, 0.8% believe in Buddhism, and the rest believe in other religions. The main religion is Orthodoxy, followed by Islam.
Russian is the official language of Russia. Each republic has the right to stipulate its own national language, which has more than 30 languages and is used together with Russian in the republic. Russian is the official language of the four CIS countries.
Since 2010, Russia has invested a lot of infrastructure construction to popularize the Internet. The Internet penetration rate has grown from 37.1% in 2010 to 70.4% in 2015, nearly doubling in five years. The number of Internet users has reached 82.9 million. Mobile phones and tablet computers have become the most popular online tools for people under 30 in Russia. More than 97% of the young generation in Russia are using the Internet for various activities, and about 28% of Russians over 55 years old can use the Internet.
With the rapid development of 4G networks and the maturity of mobile payment systems, Russians’ consumption habits have shifted to mobile applications, driving the rapid growth of the smartphone market. According to a research report by TrendForce’s Tuo Industry Research Institute, the sales volume of smartphones in Russia reached 21.4 million units in 2014, accounting for 50.5% of the total mobile phone sales. In 2015, the sales volume of smartphones in Russia reached 26.15 million units, with an annual growth rate of 22%, accounting for 60.5% of the total mobile phone sales. The prospects of the Russian smartphone market are promising.
In 2015, 30 million Russian online consumers contributed 148 million orders. In the same year, Russia’s domestic offline physical sales reached 650 billion rubles (about 10.5 billion US dollars), accounting for 2% of the Russian retail market. Among them, cross-border sales reached 3.4 billion US dollars, an increase of 55% over 2014, and the average price of each order was 4050 rubles (about 65 US dollars).
The Russian domestic market grew slightly in 2015, and some categories of goods were severely affected by the crisis.
Most large offline retailers and manufacturers continue to develop online and mobile sales channels and related infrastructure. Since 2014, venture capital activities in the Russian economic market have declined significantly, but some investors are still interested in e-commerce related services.
Compared with the Far East and Siberia, Russian consumers are satisfied with the logistics in most large and medium-sized cities, and Russian Post is also stepping up to improve services in remote areas. At present, electronic payment tools are not popular in Russia. Online shopping consumers generally use cash on delivery, and this payment method will continue to be the mainstream in the short term. The lack of high-quality human resources has become the biggest problem that constrains the entire network industry. Project managers have become the most scarce talents in the Russian e-commerce circle, and online sales personnel and logistics suppliers are also in short supply.
Cross-border e-commerce from China is growing rapidly. According to statistics, it doubled from 2013 to 2015, accounting for 80% of orders in the Russian market. The sales of most Western online retailers in Russia have declined instead of increased, mainly due to the depreciation of the ruble since 2014.