Yandex is Russia's No 1 search engine.Other than its excellent search ,the local understanding & marketing strategy around it has made it invincible.Global giants like Google always found it a tough nut to crack , at the same time all their efforts to gain Russian market share creates this interesting case study on strategy. Feel free to blog your thoughts on this.Incase you need a copy of this presentation , drop us a note, we shall be happy to mail you the same. Happy Trendsspotting.

1. A CASE STUDY ON STRATEGY
Yandex Resist Google's World Domination

2. Search Market In Russia
Top 5 Players By Reach
62.4%
51.0% 49.1%
42.4% 40.5%
Yandex Mail.Ru Rambler AOL Google
Source : Comscore

3. Yandex Revenue Growth (in $M)
167
73
35
18
8
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Source : Company Info

4. Yandex Key Milestones
Developed 2003 : Yandex 2006 : Launches
2000-05
90’s
2006-08
Yandex breaks even free, online,
technology 2004 : Adopts real-time traffic
1997 : Yandex.ru ‘Clean Mail’ monitoring for
website concept — email Moscow
1998 : free of spam 2007 : Yandex
Iintroduces Local Network
contextual Ads Program
Source : Company Info

5. Key Consumer Insight
Moscow's Daily Traffic Jam (Spring 2006 to Spring 2007)
Traffic Pressure
Summer Winter
Source : Company Info

6. Key Consumer Insight
Every day Moscow faced about 650 traffic jams,
each traffic jam stopped 1,500 cars. The average
traffic jam duration was 1 hour & 8 minutes.
Within one month of the past year drivers would waste
in traffic jams more than 11 hours, which totals to
1.5 working day.
Source : Company Info

7. Search Distribution
Yandex Toolbar & Desktop Tools Around The Functional Utility
‘Smart
application ‘
on Jam
Indicator-
updated every
5 min

8. Fierce Battle Of Outdoor Ads
Google Russia : Moscow 2.0
Embed city images & videos onto a
virtual Moscow map.
Budget : $ 250 K / Month
VS
Yandex : Traffic 2.0
GPS based UGC traffic congestion
monitoring service .
Budget : $ 150 K estimated

9. Compete & Collaborate
• Jan ‘08 : Strategic partnership between
Mail.Ru & Yandex in search technologies &
contextual advertising.
• June ‘08 : Yandex buys Smilink , Russian road
traffic monitoring agency.
• July ‘08 : Google ties up with Rambler to
power the search.
• July ‘08 : Google buys contextual ad firm
begun.

10. Search Landscape Today..
Yandex + Mail.ru shines & trouble time for Rambler
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Source : LiveInternet Yandex Google Rambler Mail.ru

11. Identity Makeover..
. . . Logo Changes
1996
1997
1999
The new logo displays the Yandex name in
Cyrillic , to reflect that Yandex has become a
2004 household name in Russia.

12. “We have better technology & understanding of the market. I take the competition
seriously & every day check the latest figures to see where it is, but I think we will stay far
ahead. What was enough for Google to conquer other markets isn’t enough in Russia.”
Arkady Volozh , Co founder & Chief Executive of Yandex
quot;Yandex concentrated on search & developed a really good engine“.
Vladimir Dolgov, Head of Google Russia

13. Insights For Global Marketers ..
• Identify one everyday problems in a country &
develop a functional utility (eg : Moscow
street traffic)
• Concentrate all your marketing efforts around
that ‘functional utility’.
• Focus on distribution challenges. Identify your
local partners carefully . Collaborate &
compete at the same time.

14. www.trendsspotting.com