For online marketers, Russia offers two appealing qualities: It’s one of just five countries in the world where Google isn’t the market leader, and Russia is now the 2nd biggest online market in Europe in terms of users, having passed the UK last year.
Yandex is the market leader in Russia, with a 64% market share, more than double Google’s 22% share, according to Russian statistics service LiveInternet (Dec. 2010). In addition to reaching native Russian speakers, Yandex (Yet Another Indexer has been aggressively expanding globally, now reaching 56 million users from all over the world.
Some other interesting stats: Despite being the second largest online market in Europe, less than half of the Russian population has internet access, suggesting more growth to come:
Russian internet users are comparatively young, though internet penetration in Moscow resembles major western cities:
Although the most popular social media sites in Russia are homegrown (Vkontakte.ru,Odnoklassniki and Mail.ru’s My World Western social media platform usage (namely Facebook and Twitter) almost doubled in 2010.
The total advertising market in Russia was about $7.5 billion in 2010, with about 11% of that going to online ads. The market is expected to grow to about $10 billion by 2012, with online spending increasing to 13% of total spend, according to Russian daily news provider Kommersant.
For more on search advertising options available in Russia, see our detailed Search Marketing Tips For Yandex, Russia’s Top Search Engine. Yandex also offers extensive Webmaster tips for help with getting your site properly indexed. To get started with search ads, visit Yandex Direct, the company’s (English language) self-serve platform.
Source: Chris Sherman, and here
