American sanctions helped Kaspersky Lab increase profits
For Russian programmers, falling under American sanctions becomes an advertisement for promotion in other markets.
Kaspersky Lab founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky stated this in an interview with Kommersant, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent, when answering a question about how recent US sanctions would impact a number of Russian IT companies.
“Being subject to sanctions could become an advertisement in other markets. For example, in 2017, the use of our products was banned in the American public sector, and the entire American press began writing nasty things. Then our sales in the US fell by about 20-25%, and in the rest of the world they grew by 25%, and the losses in the US were compensated,” Kaspersky said.
According to him, for his company today the American market is in third place in terms of sales (15% of total sales) after the European (38%) and Russian (22%).
“Sales results in 2020 were one of the best in the company’s history: Kaspersky Lab’s global revenue increased by 2,8%, to $703,9 million. In Russia, sales increased by 16%. We have also grown in Latin America, the Middle East, Turkey, Africa and Europe. Now we see the greatest prospects in Western Europe, which is developing quite well in the industrial sector. The markets of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and some Asian countries also remain promising,” noted the CEO of Kaspersky Lab.
He also told which countries refused to work with the company after the ban on the use of its products in the US public sector.
“We are present in all countries except North Korea. Governments in some countries have indeed restricted the use of our products in the public sector. These are the USA, countries under their noticeable influence: Great Britain, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Holland, with which we have been suing over this decision for two years now. They announced a ban on the use of our products in their public sector based on false information, and we proved that it was false,” Kaspersky concluded.
American sanctions helped Kaspersky Lab increase its profits.