DMO's chief marketing officer reports on Russia's increasing internet connectivity and mobile penetration.

The following is the second of a series on BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) -- emerging markets online.

With all the news lately focusing on China's lucrative internet opportunities, it would benefit marketers to start analyzing other countries in emerging markets-- BRIC. My last article on Brazil, for example, focused on that country's huge potential for growth in mobile and IPTV markets.

There are 275 million Russian speakers in the world, an estimated quarter million in the United States alone, making it the fifth most spoken language.

The Russian market is one of the largest in Europe due to the size of its population. According to Internet World Stats, March 2006, there were 23,700,000 internet users in Russia (representing 16.5 percent of the population) in December 2005.

Additionally, Ru-Centre, the Russian Registrar, reported that in 2005, 140,000 new URLs appeared in the Russian internet-- which is 46.31 percent more than in 2004. To note, in the beginning of 2006, RuNet reported 40,000 new URLs, signifying a total of 500,000 new .ru/.su domains registered to date.

These statistics alone are an indication of the rapid growth in the Russian internet space.

According to Russian information agency RosBusinessConsulting: "Such development is predictable: RuNet is developing dynamically, which is proved by the growth of electronic commerce and investments in advertising. In the near future the speed of this growth is not going to slow down."

The rapid increase of the Russian internet market space is due to economic growth, as well as mobile and broadband penetration. According to Alexei Ulyukayev, senior deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Russia's GDP will grow by 6.5 percent in 2006. To be sure, in the first five months of this year, the economy grew by 6.2 percent.

With regards to mobile, Russia's large mobile market, the largest in Europe, showed rapid growth in 2005, with growth rates in excess of 80 percent. According to a report released by Paul Budde Communications, titled Russia -- Internet, Convergence, Mobile Overview and Statistics: "The Russian internet market has experienced strong growth as has the broadband market. The increasing prevalence of broadband has led to the availability of broadband TV services, which are available as is digital. However the fastest growing sector is mobile, which has experienced phenomenal growth. The mobile market has a large number of players but is dominated by three national operators. The maturing market is experiencing consolidation as the larger operators expand their operations."

In April 2006, the number of mobile users in Russia rose by 2.3 million in comparison with the previous month to stand at 134.7 million, according to AC&M. This represents an increase of 45.4 million in comparison with last year.

What is interesting to note is the connection between Russia and China online growth. With the growth of China-Russia relations, the Chinese are increasingly interested in Russian culture. In a March 2006 article in China's People's Daily Online publication, titled "Chinese youth yearn to learn more about Russian contemporary culture," a "…survey shows that 64.5 percent of Chinese university students are interested in Russia, but many of them are not familiar with the contemporary culture of their largest neighboring country."

Could the internet be bridging the gap between these two emerging markets?

Stay tuned for the next article on a BRIC-- India.

Elizabeth M. Lloyd is chief marketing officer of Dragon Media Online. Read bio here.