Russia's Yandex beats FY revenue target after Google pulls advertising

MOSCOW :Russian internet giant Yandex on Wednesday reported a 46 per cent jump in 2022 revenue to 521.7 billion roubles ($7.05 billion), increasing its dominance in online advertising as major competitor Google pulled out of the market.

Yandex, often referred to as "Russia's Google", said investments in ad technologies drove a similar revenue jump in the fourth quarter, but adjusted net income in the quarter slid 72 per cent to 747 million roubles.

Alphabet's Google stopped selling online advertising in Russia last March while keeping some free services available, opening the door for Yandex to enhance its market share. Yandex had expected 2022 revenue of around 500 billion roubles.

The company estimated its search share on iOS platforms as of January 2023 was 48.8 per cent. Its total search market share across platforms in Russia is above 60 per cent.

"While solid trends in advertising revenue continued in January 2023, we expect growth rates to gradually normalise in the coming months once the effect of last year's changes in the ad market competitive landscape annualises," Yandex said.

Nasdaq-listed Yandex has sought to find a balance between its Western investors on the one side and the Kremlin on the other. It sold its news feed and homepage to state-controlled rival VK last year, in part to try to depoliticise its business, a source close to Yandex said.

As part of that deal, Yandex acquired VK's food delivery service Delivery Club, helping the gross merchandise volume (GMV) of its e-commerce division to almost double to 308 billion roubles in 2022, it said.

"In 2023, we plan to maintain our focus on financial discipline and operational efficiency, while also hoping to increase our emphasis on growth in certain key businesses, including e-commerce," Yandex said in a letter to shareholders.

($1 = 74.0500 roubles)