International expansion of the Wink video service (commercial launch of the Wink video service in the Republic of Armenia)
- Customer
- Rostelecom
- IT Provider
- Rostelecom, Wink brand
- Year of project completion
- 2022
- Project timeline
- March, 2022 - November, 2022
- Project scope
- 1600000 subscribers subscribers
- Goals
-
The key goal of project implementation is to create a product with content management functions, infrastructure, and technological capabilities for Wink's service to enter foreign markets. Thanks to the geographical expansion of the project, shareholder value is growing. The Republic of Armenia became the pilot country where the service was launched on the basis of the GNC-Alfa subsidiary (Rostelecom-Armenia). The project implies realization of the next stage, i.e. full integration with the IT landscape of the subsidiary company and migration of the entire subscriber base into the Wink solution.
For the subsidiary company this project provides:
saving $3,000,000 required to expand the current solution;
obtaining a full-fledged managed product in the broadband band without additional financial investment;
Improved customer experience by increasing VOD and SVOD content categories that are missing from the existing solution.
The uniqueness of the project
Wink is a video service that has been on the market since 2018.At the moment it occupies the leading position and is among the top 3 video services in the Russian Federation.
The implementation of this project is the first entry of the video service to the international level of the CIS. This is a strategic area of growth for the service, and the Republic of Armenia has become the pilot country for international expansion. The project laid the technological and legal foundation for launching the video service in other countries.
- Used software
- In-house development
- Difficulty of implementation
-
For the project team, this is the first time it has been outside the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. Of course, the legislation of the Republic of Armenia differs from the Russian one. Thus, one of the challenges of implementing the project was adapting the legal scheme for providing the service and licensing the content to the legislative framework of the Republic of Armenia.
Due to the international situation, the technological chain of payment for the service had to be rebuilt using the new links of the Republic of Armenia.
- Project Description
-
The following technological improvements were required to launch the Wink service on the territory of the Republic of Armenia:
interface localization for languages other than Russian (first of all, the choice of the Armenian language, in addition the possibility of expanding the range of interface languages used was incorporated);
Development of a registration (authorization) service for the customers by entering the phone number of a country other than the Russian Federation, and restructuring the interface according to the geo-location;
Integration with the sms-gateway of the subsidiary, located in the Republic of Armenia;
building up a technological integration chain of services (Wink service - a single system of accepting payments - preprocessing; - ArCa (a national system of interbank settlements on the basis of plastic cards in Armenia) - a bank in Armenia) to enable receiving payments for Wink service by cards of the Republic of Armenia;
redesign of the storefront to display the product offerings for customers from the Republic of Armenia;
Wink applications assembly for Armenia in GooglePlay and AppStore;
NGENIX equipment was imported to the Republic of Armenia and installed at the site of the subsidiary company;
financial and legal strapping of the project and construction of local cache infrastructure in the territory was prepared within the project implementation.
- Project geography
- Armenia
On November 30, the professional IT community GlobalCIO hosted a large-scaled international conference "Global CIO Insights: Digital Transformation with AI". During the event, leading experts shared their practical experience in launching projects utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and highlighted approaches that helped elevate their companies to new heights.
Voting for projects participating in the "Project of the Year" contest is open. The voting began on December 1st and will continue until January 15th inclusive. The winners will be announced on February 7th, 2024.
According to the statistics agency, the number of telecommunication and IT companies has increased 1.8 times in the last five years. At the beginning of 2023, there are more than 12 thousand ICT companies operating in the country. More than 100 thousand people are employed in the industry. At the end of 2022, the volume of ICT services grew by 125.5% and amounted to 22.9 trillion soums, of which 4.2 trillion soums were programming services provided by Uzbek companies and specialists. The total revenue of Uzbekistan's IT sector for the first quarter of 2023 reached 2.38 trillion soums - almost four times more than in the same period of 2022. Exports of digital services increased to $57.2 million. According to IT Park, net income amounted to more than 90% of revenue or 2.158 trillion soums.
According to the statistics agency, the number of telecommunication and IT companies has increased 1.8 times in the last five years. At the beginning of 2023, there are more than 12 thousand ICT companies operating in the country. More than 100 thousand people are employed in the industry. At the end of 2022, the volume of ICT services grew by 125.5% and amounted to 22.9 trillion soums, of which 4.2 trillion soums were programming services provided by Uzbek companies and specialists. The total revenue of Uzbekistan's IT sector for the first quarter of 2023 reached 2.38 trillion soums - almost four times more than in the same period of 2022. Exports of digital services increased to $57.2 million. According to IT Park, net income amounted to more than 90% of revenue or 2.158 trillion soums.
The IT strategy of a large number of companies includes the automation (digitization) of not only accounting processes but also production and logistics processes.