Yandex reports 2006 profits in Russian market
Yandex, the leading Russian search engine, have announced their preliminary financial results for 2006. Revenue is reported to total $72m (USD), more than double that reported for 2005. “Our internal research indicates that 2006 was the first year that search/context advertising accounted for more than half of Russia’s total online advertising,” – said Arkady Volozh, General Director and co-founder of Yandex.
European telecoms operators threaten US search hegemony
Europe’s largest telecoms operators – with one American firm – are planning to launch a mobile phone search engine to rival Google and Yahoo. The companies concerned include Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and US firm Cingular. Combined, they have a user base of 600 million people – with some 20% in the UK expected to have broadband speed mobile phone access by the end of 2007.
New to Russia, Google is struggling
The NY Times is carrying an article on Google’s lack of progress in Russia to date. Like the Chinese market, this is area which is dominated by the local players. “Google promised they would destroy everything, but look at where they are,” said Irina Gofman, chief executive of Rambler Media, one of Google’s Internet portal […]
Blogs influence European consumers
A recent
Rambler changes ownership in Russia
Rambler [LSE: RMG] has changed ownership this week in a rather dramatic share buy out. Having just sold their TV business ‘Rambler TV’ to Osgora Productions Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of Prof-Media, for US$23m it seems that Prof-Media has come back for the rest of the company. In a notification sent to shareholders, Rambler made […]
Russian Rambler sells TV business
Rambler [LSE: RMG] has decided to sell their TV business ‘Rambler TV’ to Osgora Productions Ltd, a 100 pct subsidiary of Prof-Media, a Russian media holding company for US$23. According to their press release this will allow them to “concentrate on growing its core Russian language internet business”. They have recently made some interesting moves […]
Russian internet usage at 25%
A new poll by the National Public Opinion centre has concluded that 25% of Russians now use the internet. This is a significant increase on the 19% figure taken 6 months ago. 1/5th of internet users visit forums, watch films and listen to music and 11% play online games. Source: MosNews
Online gambling under threat in Russia
This week President Putin introduced a new bill to clamp down on the gambling industry in Russia. The new bill entitled “About the State Regulation of Activities on Gambling” in currently in the project stage and has yet to be passed by the Russian Duma (government). In regard to offline gambling, the new bill proposes […]
Home-grown Adsense killer for Russia
The race is on to see which engine will deliver a contextual advertising program for ordinary webmasters in Russia to rival Google. Well it was only this Tuesday when I wrote that, and it seems that race has started in ernest today. Yandex, the largest search engine in Russia, have just announced that the barrier […]
Russian Rambler announces first-half results
Rambler, the No.2 search engine in Russia with a 20% share in the market, have released their financial statement for the 1st half of 2006 [LSE: RMG] Report highlights Total revenue up nearly 100% period on period to US$ 16 million (US$ 8 million) Internet total revenue up 137% to US$ 12.3 million (US$ 5.2 […]