Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) presented statistics based on data from the digital activity index. According to MTS, Samara has overtaken other major Russian cities in terms of the growth rate of online shopping popularity. While residents of Moscow, Omsk and Rostov-on-don in August–September 2020 were buying online two times more often than last year, Samara residents were e-shopping six times more. Online shopping in August and September in this region was even more popular than in the spring during the period of self-isolation when the number of online purchases exceeded last year’s rates four times only.
According to MTS, the surge in online purchases over the past two months occurred in the first and second weeks of August, when parents were buying school supplies. However, since the beginning of the quarantine period, the demand for online delivery of pet products, food, clothing and children’s goods also remains at a consistently high level.
To form the digital activity index, MTS analyzed depersonalized data on mobile subscribers traffic to almost 30 thousand federal and regional websites and applications of the following categories: social networks, messengers, banking sites, applications and fintech services, resources for obtaining public services, online stores, food delivery services, telemedicine services, etc.