Astra received 80% of the Russian cloud infrastructure provider Rusonyx

The Astra group of companies received 80% of the Russian cloud infrastructure provider Rusonyx with an option to buy out the remaining 20%. The transaction amount could be 313–438 million rubles. Market participants believe that the inclusion of a cloud provider in the portfolio will allow Astra to provide comprehensive services. But Rusonyx is a small player with a market share of 0.3%, and the diversity of the group’s business may cause a conflict of interest with partners, experts say.

The Astra Group of Companies told Kommersant that they acquired 80% of the cloud infrastructure provider Rusonyx with the right to buy the remaining part. The group did not specify the transaction amount. However, its annual reports, published on April 2, say that the option price for 80% of Rusonics LLC amounted to “from 313 million to 438 million rubles.” Astra took out a short-term loan for 145 million rubles. secured by 40% of Rusonyx, as specified in the document.

As the group’s technical director Anton Shmakov explained, using the Rusonyx solution the company will be able to “scale and deploy” its own products, including an operating system (OS), a database management system and automation tools. According to the top manager, by 2027, half of Astra Group’s revenue “will come from the cloud business model.”

The feasibility of the deal lies in the “synergistic development of Rusonyx and Astra Group of Companies,” which is beneficial to both companies, says Nikita Tsaplin, CEO of the hosting provider RUVDS: “Given the fact that Rusonyx bought different hosters, there is no strong brand component in the cost of the transaction. The technology stack of Astra Group is not only the Astra Linux OS, but also the ISPsystem acquired in 2022, which makes the company a strong player in the Russian software market for managing physical and virtual infrastructure.” According to him, the costs of hosting providers on software can reach 30% of their revenue; the situation is aggravated by difficulties with licensing software from foreign vendors. For Astra Group of Companies, the goal is to enter the IaaS (infrastructure as a service) market, the expert believes, and Rusonyx can receive software at a reduced price or for free.

According to Oxygen Marketing Director Pavel Suchkov, by joining Rusonyx, Astra could potentially “occupy a position in the Russian Federation that is functionally comparable to Amazon and Microsoft, providing both infrastructure and applications from a single window.” Before the departure of Microsoft and AWS as a whole, they earned at least $100 million a year (RUB 9.2 billion) in the Russian Federation, he specified.

At the same time, Rusonyx is a small player. According to the iKS-Consulting rating, the market leader in the provision of cloud infrastructure in the Russian Federation in 2023 was Rostelecom-DPC (27.1%), followed by Cloud.ru (19%), Selectel (8.5%) and MTS ( 6.7%). Rusonyx ranks only 20th with a share of 0.3%. In general, the IaaS market in the Russian Federation grew by 29% in 2023, exceeding 100 billion rubles.

According to Alexey Smirnov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Basalt SPO, Astra’s strategy “has both advantages and a number of disadvantages,” one of the latter being “competition with potential partners in all areas of IT business.” Because of this, he explains expert, “difficulties may arise in cooperation with organizations that have their own solution in one of the areas of the group’s work.”

Timofey Kornev