Who celebrated the New Year with the Russians?

We have already talked about how the work with “big data” is built in our team: here and here . Now let's see how we can convert the results of data analysis into concrete facts and how we can use these facts for the benefit of our subscribers. Since it is now the beginning of the year and we are still just moving away from the New Year holidays, we decided to consider an example of the appropriate one: find out which foreigners celebrated the New Year in Russia and where exactly? And where did our compatriots celebrate holidays?


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As soon as the subscriber is registered in our network, all information about him in coded form is reduced to a single database. We know where the subscriber came from, we can trace his movement in Russia, see how often and to what extent he uses communication services. All these data help us not only to optimize network performance, but also to develop new tariff offers. In this post we have tried to show that even a small amount of the data obtained can serve as a basis for making large decisions.

Who stayed with us on New Year's Eve

So, on New Year's Eve, about 250,000 foreigners registered with MegaFon networks. We calculated that this year more foreigners came to celebrate holidays in Russia than in the past: it seems that because of the sharply cheaper Russian currency, holidays in our country became financially attractive for foreign guests.
It is expected that most of them came from neighboring countries: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Ukraine. However, thousands of people from more distant states, such as Italy and the United States, clinked glasses with our compatriots.

Top 10 countries whose residents celebrated New Year in Russia

Belorussia	22274	10.6%
Kazakhstan	18460	8.8%
Estonia	16561	7.9%
Ukraine	13178	6.3%
Latvia	11299	5.4%
Finland	10793	5.1%
Netherlands	7695	3.7%
Lithuania	6964	3.3%
USA	5719	2.7%
Italy	5012	2.4%

From Moscow to the outskirts
According to the results of a detailed analysis of connections by regions of Russia, we see that out of 250,000 foreigners, about 70,000 listened to the Courant clock in Moscow. Neighbors from Belarus became the most frequent guests of the capital - about 5.5 thousand residents of this country registered in the MegaFon Moscow network. In second place in Moscow - the citizens of the Netherlands - 2.5 thousand people. Slightly less in the capital at the height of the holidays were residents of France and Italy.

Top 10 countries whose residents celebrated the New Year in Moscow

Belorussia	5408	10.4%
Netherlands	2504	4.8%
France	2470	4.8%
Italy	2413	4.6%
Tajikistan	2379	4.6%
Latvia	2357	4.5%
Estonia	2320	4.5%
Germany	2119	4.1%
Azerbaijan	1959	3.8%
Kazakhstan	1872	3.6%

It is curious that the New Year holidays along with the Muscovites also met 364 Belgian citizens, 205 Koreans, 30 Filipinos, 21 Tunisians, 9 Indonesians, 2 residents of Gibraltar and one Afghan.
4 thousand citizens of Estonia and Finland, and about a thousand Americans visited St. Petersburg on New Year's holidays. 30 residents of the United States celebrated the New Year in Kamchatka. Some cases recorded by us are very unexpected and cause an involuntary smile. For example, one resident of Syria ended up on New Year's Eve in the Primorsky Territory, one Kenyan got to Omsk, and a resident of the African Ivory Coast met the new 2016 in Kalmykia.

What about us?
And what about our citizens? Where did they catch the 2016? It is logical to assume that not everyone could afford to travel abroad. According to MegaFon analytics, this year the number of people traveling abroad on New Year's holidays has decreased by 19%. If a year ago, 756,000 MegaFon subscribers were leaving for holidays to other countries, now there are only 635,000. At the same time, residents of one Russian region began to drive more by 16% than in 2015 - the Far Eastern one. Trips to Asia hit the wallet of Russians not as much as in Western countries.
For reasons known to all of us, Egypt left the top of the countries most popular for New Year’s trips. Also left the rating Moldova. But Italy has risen in two places (from 11 to 9), and Switzerland made an unprecedented leap from 22 to 8 place.

Top 10 countries in which celebrated New Year residents of Russia

	2015	2016
one	Belorussia	Belorussia
2	Ukraine	Finland
3	Finland	Kazakhstan
four	Kazakhstan	Ukraine
five	Germany	Estonia
6	Moldavia	Germany
7	Germany	Tajikistan
eight	Egypt	Switzerland
9	France	Italy
ten	Tajikistan	France

Being a guest is good, but being at home is better
And we also see that a little less than 7 million MegaFon subscribers traveled throughout Russia during the New Year holidays. We can identify trends: how many subscribers move from one region to another, with the place of arrival to fix down to the city.
The largest number of MegaFon customers is about 3 million; on New Year's holidays, they left Moscow and the region. Most likely, these are those who came to conquer the capital, and during the holidays they visit their parents and friends in their hometown. The most popular destinations are the neighboring regions: Vladimir, Tula, Ryazan, Tver, Kaluga. We arrived to celebrate New Year in the capital of just over a million MegaFon subscribers from other cities. Thus, Muscovites might notice that in the city in early January, the streets of the city became more free.
We compile such “maps” of movement of subscribers for each region, fixing where the number of subscribers increases and decreases, and also noting the most popular routes and calculating the services that subscribers mostly use in roaming.

What is the profit?

How can we use the data? Calculating the most popular directions of movement of our subscribers, we can develop special roaming offers that will be in demand and launch them exactly when they are needed. For example, given the increased “internal traffic” and the growing use of mobile Internet in roaming in the country, we offered subscribers a new option to reduce costs - “Be at home”. I connected it and forgot about national roaming.
In addition, by anticipating a sharp increase in the number of subscribers in a particular area at a certain time, we can increase the network capacity in advance and avoid possible communication problems.
In future posts, we will present other examples of the use of more complex data analysis algorithms.