Aquarius will start supplying servers to Vietnam in 2025

According to him, Aquarius is also negotiating with potential partners in Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, the Congo and other countries.

Since digital transformation is usually initiated by the state and transfers tasks to companies, the first contracts are likely to be concluded with government agencies, Kalinin explained.

The director of the Vietnam Institute of Sustainable Development and Digital Economy, Pham Thi Xuan, confirmed the negotiations. He noted that the Vietnamese authorities are interested in cooperating with Aquarius and plan to use Russian servers in the national infrastructure.

Late last year, Kommersant reported that Aquarius plans to open a showroom in Myanmar in early 2024, but company representatives have not commented on whether this plan has been implemented.

Aquarius is not the only Russian company in the sector that is considering entering the markets of friendly countries. The possibility of expansion is constantly being discussed at Fplus, a company representative informed Vedomosti. The payback period for such projects is 3-5 years, but Vietnam can easily be included in the top five most attractive countries for starting a business for Russian companies, he noted. Representatives for Yadro and Kraftway declined to comment to the publication about their export plans.

In recent years, Aquarius has repeatedly announced plans to accelerate business and production development:

• In summer 2023, Interfax wrote that Aquarius could hold an initial public offering (IPO) within the next three years. The company planned to issue bonds last year, as Forbes notes, but has not yet been able to raise 3 billion rubles.
• In November 2023, Kommersant reported that the company plans to invest 40 billion rubles until 2026 to expand production capacity and launch new products, including TVs, watches and smart speakers.
• In March 2024, Vedomosti wrote about the possible entry of Aquarius into the consumer market. And in June Kommersant added that by the end of the year the company intends to start producing its own WiFi points with a total investment of about one billion rubles.