Webinar Group (Webinar, Webinar Technologies)

Webinar Group is an ecosystem of online learning and communications services. Since 2008, Webinar Group has helped the business train employees, customers and partners, as well as build internal communications online. The company is a resident of Skolkovo.

Partner Program

2023: Partner Program Launch

On April 27, 2023, Webinar Group announced what makes partner business development one of the priorities in its activities. The revamped team, made up of sales, marketing and training experts, has developed partner environments designed to increase joint sales.

As part of the program, Webinar Group integrators, resellers, distributors and technology partners will receive a number of preferences. In particular, they will have access to discounts, the ability to pass certification and receive official partner status. In addition, they will be able to use the marketing resources of the Webinar Group: the company will provide ready-made marketing and sales materials, provide PR support and the opportunity to use the marketing fund. The program also provides free training for product partners.

The need of Russian business for high-quality solutions for business communications included in the register of domestic software is as high as ever. We strive to ensure that as many customers as possible can not only access our platform, but also adapt its capabilities to their needs. In achieving this goal, we cannot do without the help of partners. That is why we decided to invest in relations with them, - said Elizabeth Pokrovskaya, head of partner sales at Webinar Group. - We plan to provide partners with all support and necessary resources to ensure that joint projects are as effective as possible. We thank you for the productive work of the company, which is already cooperating with us, and will be glad to welcome new participants in our partner program.

Performance indicators

2023: Loss - 485.7 million rubles

The company "Webinar Technologies" (brand "MTS Link") at the end of 2023 earned 865.5 million, rubles which is more than income a year ago at 835.4 million rubles. This is evidenced by the data "," Contour Focus which TAdviser got acquainted with in May 2024.

The net loss of MTS Link in 2023 amounted to 485.7 million rubles, while in 2022 a net profit of 142.6 million rubles was recorded. The loss from sales in 2023 reached 449.6 million rubles against 171 million rubles in profit a year earlier. The company's gross profit decreased from 604.8 million to 360.6 million rubles.

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The cost of sales of Webinar Technologies LLC at the end of 2023 turned out to be equal to 504.8 million rubles against 230.5 million rubles recorded for the previous year. The company's commercial expenses in 2023 were measured at 465.2 million rubles, management costs - 345 million rubles (in 2022 - 433.9 million rubles).

Receivables from Webinar Technologies LLC in 2023 amounted to 150.3 million rubles, which is almost four times more than a year earlier (41 million rubles). Accounts payable also increased - from 75.6 million to 212.1 million rubles.

According to TAdviser in MTS Link, in 2023 the company carried out a large-scale rebranding and released more than 40 updates for its products. In addition, two new services were launched: Link Boards and Link Chat, as well as a solution for the Link Rooms meeting rooms.

It is also reported that in 2023 MTS Link had 1.7 million new users, with the help of the platform 5 million events were held, in which about 30 million users took part. More than 10 times increased the number of employees added to the MTS Link platform using SSO.

History

2024

TAdviser interview with Learning Business Unit Director Martha Lehman

In September 2024, the MTS Link team, an ecosystem of services for business communications and collaboration, announced the start of work on a comprehensive platform for corporate training. According to the developer's calculations, the implementation of the solution will help increase the efficiency of assimilation of material by employees by 22%. Martha Lehman, Director of the Training Business Unit of MTS Link, talks about corporate training trends, as well as the possibilities and advantages of the new platform. Read more here.

Appointment of Vladimir Urbansky as General Director

Webinar Technologies, a Russian company developing a platform for business communications and joint work MTS Link, announced the appointment of a general director. It was Vladimir Urbansky. The appointment has already taken effect, company officials told TAdviser on April 19, 2024. Read more here.

2023

TAdviser and MTS Link study

Analytical agency TAdviser and Webinar Technologies, a Russian company developing a platform for business communications and joint work of MTS Link, conducted a study of the demand for communication platforms in large Russian companies. According to the study, 42% of such organizations are considering introducing or replacing communications services in the next 12 months. In 100% of cases, Russian IT products are expected to be implemented. At the same time, 64% of respondents noted the economic effect of the transition from offline to online. Read more here.

Product line renaming to MTS Link

Webinar Group, a Russian company developing a platform for business communications and collaboration (part of the MTS digital ecosystem), announces the rebranding. All IT solutions for business communication, previously included in the Webinar Group, will be combined under the UCaaS brand "MTS Link." Read more here.

Completion of the acquisition of the Jespo service

On September 26, 2023, Webinar Group, a company developing a platform for business communications and collaboration (part of the digital MTS ecosystem), completed a deal to purchase the Russian online interactive whiteboard service Jespo. Read more here.

Increase of MTS share in Webinar to 84.25%

MTS increased its stake in Webinar to 84.25% and spent a total of 2.5 billion rubles on its purchase. This became known on May 24, 2023.

The details of the deal became known to CNews. It writes that initially MTS acquired control (75.5%) over Webinar for 2.1 billion rubles, having issued the purchase of the corresponding share in the Cypriot offshore Riandele, which is the owner of the Russian LLC Webinar and LLC Webinar Technologies.

MTS share in Webinar is now 84.25%

The companies also entered into call and put options that allow MTS to buy out the remaining stake in Webinar, and oblige the creators of the service to buy out the remaining stake from them. By May 24, 2023, call and put options continue to apply to the remaining 15.5% stake in Webinar. They can be implemented in 2024 and 2025. depending on the financial results of Webinar.

As part of the first transaction, Webinar was valued at 2.7 billion rubles, and during the second (when MTS increased its stake in the company from 75.5% to 84.25% for 328 million rubles) - 3.7 billion rubles. MTS expects to increase Webinar's headcount to 200 employees by the end of 2023 against 100 a year earlier.

According to Pavel Voronin, First Vice President of MTS for Technology, the Company is going to develop Webinar as a UCaaS platform (unified communication as a service), customers will be offered "all in one" - from SLA warranty to the most advanced tools like voice command recognition and i-tracking (eye tracking technology).

In one or two years, we want to make Webinar the leader in the VKS market in Russia and a fully comparable analogue of Microsoft Teams. Webinar will have collaboration boards, mailboxes, a messenger and other solutions for many employees to interact in a single space. Also, Webinar can already "hold" 10 thousand connections at a time, - said Voronin.[1]

Change the strategy for working with educational organizations

On February 14, 2023, Webinar Group announced that it had changed the format of work with educational organizations: universities, secondary specialized institutions, DPO organizations, training centers and online schools. For this, a special unit has been formed, a community of external experts has been created, and the services themselves continue to change taking into account the requests of educational organizations.

Since its founding in 2008, Webinar Group has helped educational organizations conduct distance lectures and seminars, online meetings and conferences of teaching staff, and teach students in online courses.

As part of the updated strategy, the company's specialists have collected current requirements for services for online training and communication. To do this, during 2022, the company conducted surveys of representatives of the education sector. Based on the analysis, Webinar Group has improved services by adding new features. In particular, the interface has been updated: the screen with participants is now displayed page-by-page, the speaker is surrounded by a frame, and active participants automatically enter the initial screen. Also, you can now take notes right during the lesson and automatically send to the mail to other participants. In addition, it became possible to create a link to a "permanent lesson," available always without time limits.

To more actively interact with educational organizations, Webinar Group has created a special division - the EDU team. Among the first initiatives of the department is the launch of a weekly training webinar with the ability to take a test and receive a certificate of passage.

In 2023, even more innovations for educational organizations will appear:

• integration c - SIP the ability to call the event and from the event from the hardware codec and SIP phone;
• exchange files in the chat of the meeting;
• Remote desktop management when the screen is displayed
• securing speakers in the VKS and other updates.

The market for educational services is becoming more and more competitive every year, so our efforts are largely aimed at giving universities the most advanced tools for effective work: organizing online meetings of employees and distance learning, creating educational content, increasing the level of academic performance and audience engagement, holding open days and parent meetings. We are confident that our solutions will help educational institutions become even more attractive for applicants, "said Tatyana Fedotova, director of work with public sector organizations.

2022

4th place in the TAdviser rating "The largest participants in the Russian VKS system market"

MTS Link took 4th place in the ranking of the largest suppliers of video conferencing systems (VKS), prepared by TAdviser in March 2023 based on the companies' revenue from the implementation of VKS projects in 2022. Read more here.

Data for 2022

9th place in the ranking "The largest participants in the Russian unified communications market"

Webinar Group ranked 9th in the TAdviser ranking, based on revenue from unified communications projects in Russia in 2022 and published in December 2023. Read more here.

Participation in TAdviser HR IT Day 2022

On October 26, 2022, the TAdviser conference "HR IT Day 2022" will be held, dedicated to the development of information technology in the field of HR. At the event, Webinar Group will present its own platform for online meetings, meetings and training Webinar Meetings, which replaces foreign solutions for VKS.

Webinar Group is a Russian ecosystem of services for online communication and training. For 14 years, Webinar Group has been helping companies create a convenient online space for internal corporate communication, onboarding and advanced training of employees.

Ilya Potapenko, HR Director of Webinar Group, will make a presentation at the event. He will talk about the advantages of the Russian Webinar Meetings service and share the cases of companies that are already successfully using Webinar Meetings to solve HR problems.

Attending TAdviser Digital Transformation Day 2022

On September 28, the TAdviser "Digital Transformation Day 2022" conference will take place, at which Webinar Group will talk about its own platform for online meetings and Webinar Meetings, which can replace foreign VKS solutions.

Webinar Group is a Russian ecosystem of services for online communication and training. For 13 years, Webinar Group has been helping companies create a convenient online space for internal corporate communications, employee training, interaction with partners and customers, effective promotion and sales.

Vladimir Karpenko, head of the On-premium and Meetings business unit, will make a presentation at the event. He will talk about the advantages of the Russian VKS solution and its deployment options, as well as share the cases of companies that have successfully switched from foreign solutions to Webinar Meetings.

Disclosed the cost of selling the service to MTS - 4 billion rubles

At the end of August 2022, the cost of transactions for the purchase of Bronevik and Webinar services by MTS became known. The Russian telecommunications operator named prices as part of its reporting for the first half of 2022. Read more here.

Closing the transaction on the acquisition of a controlling stake by MTS

The Russian company MTS, which provides digital, media and telecommunications services, closed the deal to acquire a controlling stake in the Webinar group of companies (Webinar Meetings, Webinar.ru, We.Study, COMDI brands), a Russian developer of solutions for video meetings, webinars and online events. This was announced on July 20, 2022 to TAdviser by MTS representatives. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

MTS bought the Russian developer of solutions for video meetings and online events Webinar
Photo: yandex.ru

Over the past 12 months, more than 22 million users have used Webinar products, and over 10 thousand organizations have become customers over the entire time. Webinar services are registered register of domestic software in and have their own server infrastructure in the territory. Russia

As a result of this acquisition, MTS expects to increase competitiveness in the B2B market by entering the video communications segment. The company intends to integrate Webinar Group solutions into its B2B product line in a minimal time. Later, MTS plans to develop a product strategy and decide on further integration and brand of updated services.

"The acquisition of the unconditional Russian leader in the segment of video communications Webinar will not only complement the B2B ecosystem of MTS services, but it will also give us the opportunity to create our own analogue of the Russian Zoom - a single universal application for video calls and conferences, and in the future for our B2B clients - communication services integrated with VKS due to synergy with Telecom API solutions and artificial intelligence, " Inessa Galaktionova, First Vice President for Telecommunications Business of MTS, commented on the deal.

According to her, the video conferencing market in Russia is growing at a faster pace. The driver of this process was the transition of companies to remote work in a pandemic and the import substitution process in full swing. In particular, MTS estimates the average annual growth rate of the market at 29%. However, as of July 2022, almost 100% of the Russian VKS market for large business and the state segment is occupied by foreign solutions. With the acquisition of Webinar from MTS, it becomes possible to take a significant share with the Russian product, according to the company.

Foreign companies are leaving the Russian market, high-quality solutions of domestic companies should come to their place. And Webinar offers services that can replace the solutions of Western providers, "added Inessa Galaktionova.

According to MTS, the deal has already received all corporate approvals and permission from the FAS. As a result of the transaction, Webinar will function as a separate structure in the MTS Group and will continue to be managed by the existing team. As of July 20, 2022, MTS already sells Webinar services.

Webinar Products and Technologies

According to information for July 2022, Webinar offers products in a cloud or boxed solution:

• Webinar Meetings - a service for online meetings and meetings;
• Webinar is a platform for hosting webinars and online events;
• We.Study is a platform for organizing mixed education for employees, clients, partners and students.
• COMDI is a service for organizing large online turnkey events based on their own streaming platform. Webinar includes the COMDI division, which provides large virtual and hybrid events on its own streaming platform.

Webinar Group has also created a number of proprietary technologies:

• Own server for processing and distributing video streams (SFU), which allows you to connect millions of users to the service at a time and indefinitely scale this number.
• Active Speaker technology, which allows you to broadcast hundreds or even thousands of meeting participants simultaneously in a browser, desktop or mobile application.

2021

Logo in 2021

More than 800,000 webinars, online courses and meetings are held annually on Webinar Group platforms, collecting more than 300 million participants (data as of July 2021).

2020

Former company logo, 2015.

For June 2020, Webinar Group solutions are on the market under the brands Webinar.ru, We.Study, COMDI and Webinar Meetings. More than 7 million visitors to online meetings and online courses come to the Webinar.ru and We.Study platforms every month (according to Similarweb for April 2020). More than 10 thousand companies have already used Webinar Group services.

2008: Founding of the Company

Webinar was founded in 2008.

Notes