Report: Rostelecom writes off third of investment in OS Avrora

MOSCOW, Jun 20 (PRIME) -- Investment of Russian state-controlled telecom operator Rostelecom in mobile operating system Sailfish, recently rebranded into Avrora, has been devaluated by a third within less than a year, business daily Vedomosti reported late on Wednesday, quoting the company’s report.

Rostelecom paid 3.4 billion rubles to Grigory Beryozkin, founder of power holding ESN, for 75% in each of Votron and Open Mobile Platform, which develop mobile operating system Sailfish OS and Sailfish Mobile RUS, for 3.4 billion rubles in 2018.

The state-controlled operator wrote off 1.2 billion rubles of the investment as of the end of 2018. The system’s developers earned 38 million rubles in 2018 and received a net loss of 416 million rubles.

A Rostelecom spokesperson said some 20,000 smartphones currently work on Avrora, which is the only mobile operating system on the local software register. This status and a vast potential of the application explain the purchase multipliers, which are “well-based”, the spokesperson said.

(63.9794 rubles – U.S. $1)

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