Russia's Yandex reports full-year revenue jump, spinoff in focus

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Russian technology giant Yandex is on display at the company’s headquarters in Moscow, Russia December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian search engine giant Yandex on Thursday reported a 53% jump in full-year revenue to 800.1 billion roubles ($8.72 billion), driven by organic growth across the business, from search and advertising to e-commerce and ride-hailing.

Yandex’s Nasdaq-listed and Dutch-registered parent, Yandex NV, last week agreed to spin off some assets in a cash and shares deal worth $5.2 billion, a far cry from the company’s value before Moscow sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022.

In a world where Western firms have left Russia in droves, sometimes for a nominal fee, and Moscow has unilaterally seized foreign-owned assets, there is a sense of relief, if not triumph after 18 months of tense negotiations, according to nine people familiar with the negotiation process Reuters spoke to.

Yandex said the deal had won unanimous approval from the board.

Yandex has gradually obtained greater market share of Russia’s online search and advertising space, a process hastened after Alphabet’s Google stopped selling online advertising in Russia in March 2022.

Yandex’s overall search market share averaged 63.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its own estimates.

Revenue grew across the board. Accelerated hiring in Yandex’s search, cloud and entertainment businesses drove a 26% year-on-year jump in employee numbers to 26,361 in 2023, it said.

Adjusted net income increased by 155% to 27.4 billion roubles, but a 6.3-billion-rouble impairment of intangible assets and investments in business expansion led to a net loss of 6.3 billion roubles in the fourth quarter, Yandex said.

($1 = 91.7700 roubles)

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Alexander Marrow; editing by David Goodman and Jason Neely)