Hungary’s low cost airline Wizz Air in January-July 2018 carried over 700,000 passengers on flights from/to Ukraine, which is twice more than a year ago. “In the first seven months of 2018 ending July, Wizz Air transported more than 700,000 passengers on Ukrainian routes, which is twice as much as in the same period last year, which makes Wizz the first largest low-cost air carrier in Ukraine,” the airline’s press service said.
This year, 13 new destinations have been launched from Ukraine, including flights to Katowice, Gdansk, Dortmund, London Luton, Lisbon, Tallinn, Frankfurt, Berlin Schoenefeld and Vienna (37 routes to 11 countries in total). “Our constant expansion of activities in Ukraine underscores Wizz Air’s commitment to the country, and also continues stimulating the development of local tourism,” Communications Manager at Wizz Air Sorina Ratz said. Wizz Air is the largest low cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe.
Huawei Ukraine in January-June 2018 increased smartphone sales in Ukraine by 30% compared to the same period in 2017. Compared to 2017, smartphone sales in Ukraine increased by 3 percentage points (p.p.), to 16%. According to Marketing Director of Huawei Anton Stepaniuk, the brand awareness increase from third parties was 8 p.p., to 81%.
According to him, in the market of tablet PCs in Ukraine the company also showed a growth of more than 11%, to 20% for half a year, and in annual terms by almost twice. He also noted that in the high price segment (EUR300-400), Huawei’s market share growth in the first half of 2018 in Ukraine was 16 p.p., to 20%. According to the company, Huawei climbed to the second position in the list of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world in terms of sales, increasing it by 40.9%. Thanks to this, its share of the world market was 15.8% against 12.1% for Apple.
Huawei also announced its intention to open another 10,000 branded stores and 700 multifunctional centers by the end of 2018. Now there are more than 53,000 Huawei branded shops and 3,500 centers in the world.
Ukrenergo is preparing a new joint project with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) “Modernization of Transmission Networks” with an approximate cost of EUR 149 million, the company’s press service has reported. “The goal of the project is the replacement of power equipment, the reconstruction of substations with the introduction of an automated control system for technological processes,” Ukrenergo said. As part of the preparation of the project, representatives of consultancy companies selected by the EBRD, namely Tetra Tech (the United States) and AF-Mercados EMI (Spain) visited ten substations of Ukrenergo (750 kV Zakhidnoukrainska, 400 kV Mukachevo, 330 kV Novovolynsk, 330 kV Hrabiv, 750 kV Donbaska, 330 kV Myrhorod, 330 kV Kupiansk, 330 kV Mykolaivska, 330 kV Trykhaty, and 330 kV Lisova).
The consultants should prepare feasibility studies for the reconstruction of the listed substations, and the project is planned to be implemented at the expense of EBRD loan funds until 2021.
Modernization of the substations will increase the efficiency and reliability of electricity transmission, will allow to manage the equipment of the substations from the regional centers. Also, its implementation will be the basis for the introduction of a smart grid technology in the framework of the “Second Electricity Transmission Project” implemented by Ukrenergo jointly with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
Some 85% of Ukrainians were users of smartphones as of late H1 2018, which was 3% more than a year ago, the OLX announcement service has said in a press release, referring to a study by GfK. “Last year in Ukraine there were only 82% of smartphone users, now their number has reached 85%, while, according to statistics, each consumer on average owns three or four gadgets,” GfK said in the study.
According to the research company, in the first half of 2018, 50% of Ukrainians sought information about the desired product from a mobile phone. Meanwhile, according to forecasts of the research company eMarketer, by 2021 the share of mobile purchases in the global e-commerce market will amount to 72.9% of all sales.
According to data provided by the OLX press service, in 2018, 50% of the Ukrainian Internet audience visits the Ukrainian OLX trading platform least once a month, with 60% of them using mobile devices for this purpose.
At the same time, according to reports of the three largest mobile operators in Ukraine, the penetration of smartphones in their networks is the following: Kyivstar as of July 1, 2018 – almost 50%, Vodafone-Ukraine in the first half of 2018- about 60%; and lifecell – as of the end of the second quarter of 71%.
Ukraine’s Economic Development and Trade Ministry has announced the start of a second contest of micro projects of non-profitable organizations concerning popularization of local culture, history and natural inheritance in Lviv, Volyn, Zakarpattia, Rivne, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. According to a posting on the ministry’s website, EUR 5.2 million has been provided from the budget of the Poland-Belarus-Ukraine border cooperation program for 2014-2020. The sum of a grant for a project could be from EUR 20,000 to EUR 60,000.
The ministry said that the grant will be provided for cultural, creative and educational events, experience exchange events, preservation of historical and natural inheritance of the border areas and development of local communities.
Bids can be submitted until October 31, 2018. The projects will be selected in June 2019.
