Yandex is using maps from NAVTEQ from around the world, including in Europe, North America, Australia and developed countries in Asia. The maps include roadways, traffic networks and buildings.

Maria Orlova, head of production and quality control on the Yandex.Maps service, says, “Our users have already appreciated high-quality detailed maps of Russia and Ukraine with the search function and other useful features such as routing, traffic information, satellite images and panoramic views. We continue to enhance our map services for Belarus and Kazakhstan.”

Yandex has actually already been using NAVTEQ maps for Turkey at yandex.com.tr. The company also partners with other map providers to license content for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In 2010, the company purchased GIS Technologies for city maps.

“NAVTEQ’s content will help us make Yandex.Maps a comprehensive, all-purpose mapping service that can answer users’ questions about countries throughout the world,” she adds.

Yandex says it will gradually add content to both its desktop version and mobile app to support all major platforms.

There’s an API available for sites to utilize, and embed maps.

A post on the Quintura Blog stated today, "The leading Russian search engine and contextual advertising company, Yandex plans $1 billion IPO on NASDAQ in June – July 2011, reported newspaper Vedomosti.  The company hired investment banks Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley to manage the IPO."

It’s possible a serious rush will result.  Yandex’s search engine has a market share of about 64 percent, which is seriously impressive given the competition.

Yandex’s finances aren’t in bad shape, either, considering that the company reported a 43 percent increase in revenue between 2009 and 2010.

Then there’s the simple fact that the move’s well timed in relation to the overall economy, since investors are starting to take their money out from underneath their mattresses once again.

It should be interesting to see what happens.  Unfortunately, no additional details are available at this time.

That puts Yandex’s revenue for 2010 at about $410 million, which is a tidy enough sum.  As for some other achievements, an official announcement explained, "Revenues from contextual advertising grew 45% year-over-year."

Also, the number of Yandex’s advertisers increased by more than 40% on a year-over-year basis, totaling around 180,000 in the end.

Meanwhile, according to the Russian Association of Communication Agencies, the overall Russian online ad market grew by just 37 percent between 2009 and 2010, putting Yandex – which controls roughly a 64 percent share of the local search market – ahead of the curve in almost every respect.

All this led Arkady Volozh, Yandex’s CEO, to state, "The highlight of 2010, as we see it, is that by constantly improving our product quality we managed to increase our share in the search market.  The considerable revenue increase we report this year reflects two important trends – a post-crisis revival of the small and medium-sized businesses and a shift in advertising expenditures from other channels towards online advertising."

Last week, Volozh gave an interview indicating that he thinks Google and Facebook will continue to trail local companies in Russia, as well.

We’re going to have to keep this one filed under "rumor". The validity of the story is questionable, as O’Neill points out himself, the email screen grab provided that is supposed to be from Facebook to a partner refers to Facebook fans as "followers", which is not a term Facebook would normally use. He says his source is "extremely reliable" though. 

Facebook’s comment was simply, "As you know, we don’t comment on speculation. We have nothing to share at this time."

While this story may or may not be legitimate, the concept is certainly not far-fetched at all, though I’m not sure if businesses can’t market deals with Facebook Places without such a service.  

One Facebook deal we know is legitimate (because they issued a press release about it) is one between the company and Russian search engine Yandex. The deal will see Yandex integrating Facebook info into some of its offerings. 

Yandex’s front page hosts a Facebook widget, and the company will now add the data from Facebook into its blog search index. Facebook will provide Yandex with a syndication feed that gathers info about updates on its Pages and profiles created to represent public figures, businesses or organizations. 

"Social networks are becoming more open to the outside world and it’s a win-win situation for everyone," said Roman Ivanov, Head of Communication Services at Yandex. "Social networking web-sites get more traffic and new users, and search engines obtain a whole load of information that boosts the search quality. We anticipate user interest in social and personal search to keep growing."

"We feel that this partnership will bring a lot of value for our Russian users as we would like the public information on Facebook to be easily searchable via Yandex," added Javier Olivan, Head of International at Facebook.

Yandex, the dominant search engine in Russia, has been Mail.ru’s default search provider since January of 2006.  However, that deal will soon expire, and apparently Google convinced Yandex that it provides a better search experience.  (Or if you’re the cynical type, it just offered Yandex more money.)

Yakov Sadchikov recently wrote, "Russia’s leading online portal Mail.ru is going to replace its default web search engine and contextual advertising provider Yandex with Google from the beginning of 2010, according to Russian internet industry sources."

Mail.ru’s share of the Russian search market is 10 percent, according to LiveInternet.ru, so this promises to be a significant arrangement for Google.  Google’s share of the Russian search market is only 23.3 percent, by the way, and Yandex’s share is along the lines of 58.7 percent.

Sadchikov also provided one more hint about what’s at stake by writing, "In 2009, the Russian contextual advertising market shall reach $400 million."

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Blame the global economy for starters.  Unsteady markets and rising inflation have caused investors to become nervous, making them less likely to sink money into anything without a long and solid track record.  Yandex, which was founded in 1997 and became profitable in 2002, might not be embraced.

Then there are the more specific concerns about Russia’s relationship with the rest of the world.  After the country more or less ignored all of its neighbors and partners during the war with Georgia, it’s being viewed with an extra dose of suspicion.  Sanctions or a new Cold War could complicate the transfer of money.

Anyway, Svetlana Gladkova reports that word of the IPO’s postponement comes from "one of the leading Russian investment fund[s] known for its multiple investments in IT companies."  And not much else has changed, since, as was originally rumored, "[v]aluation of Yandex as a result of the NASDAQ IPO is supposed to reach the level between $3 billion and $5 billion."

We’ll be sure to report if new numbers – or a range of dates within 2009 – are released.

There’s a lot that could be said about Usmanov, especially by British writer and former Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray. For now, we’ll just say the billionaire has his eyes on the search market, as he seeks a stake in Yandex.

The Quintura blog noted his interest:

The founder of Metalloinvest holding and owner of Kommersant publishing house, Alisher Usmanov is becoming a major investor in Russian internet, reported business daily Vedomosti. According to newspaper, he is negotiating an acquisition of a 10%-20% stake in Russia’s leading search engine Yandex from the founding managers of the company as well as via new shares at upcoming IPO on NASDAQ. Based on the company’s expected valuation of up to up to $5 billion, the stake could be worth some $1 billion. The investment banks Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Renaissance Capital are managing the Yandex’s IPO.

Usmanov also holds stakes in LiveJournal’s owner SUP and in big email provider Mail.ru parent Digital Sky Technologies. Yandex competes with Google for the search market; if Murray’s assessment of Usmanov is accurate, the competition could get rough.

"[A] source close to the offering" told Reuters that the IPO would take place this fall, and "expectations are based on a preliminary valuation of Yandex at $5 billion."  If you’re looking for some reference points, Yahoo’s current market cap is about $38 billion, and Baidu’s is nearer to $12 billion.

 Yandex

"Russian media earlier reported Yandex had mandated Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Renaissance Capital to organise an IPO on [the] Nasdaq," according to the Reuters article.  This American, German, and Russian group sounds pretty impressive.

Other details of the IPO remain unknown, and what Yandex plans to do with the money (expand to new markets, acquire Russian companies, build a Yandexplex) is just as big a mystery.

This should be an interesting story to watch, though.  And for Yandex’s sake and ours, here’s hoping the American economy’s in better shape by the time its IPO takes place.

With a 79.2 percent share of the European search market in March, Google easily qualifies as the top European search property.  More than 19 billion searches were conducted using its sites during this one month alone.

 comScore’s European Search Stats
 (Photo Credit: comScore)

eBay, strangely enough, ranked second, with 752 million searches and 3.1 percent of the market share.  And honestly, since the numbers are getting so small, it’s tempting to stop there, but the presence of the next site may come as even more of a surprise.

Russian search engine Yandex took third place with 528 million searches and a market share of 2.2 percent.  This means it beat Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask, in addition to other European contenders.  It also signals (at least to anyone who wasn’t already aware of the fact) that Russia is a market worth keeping an eye on.

Google will continue to get the lion’s share of attention, though, for as long as it can continue to get involved in four-fifths of European searches.

Contextual advertising in the Russian market has boiled down to a couple of players: Yandex, which provided an assessment of such ads in Russia, and Begun.

Yandex claimed it has between 55 and 60 percent of the contextual ad market, based on revenue. Begun followed that with 30 to 35 percent. Everyone else, including Google’s AdWords, is chasing the leftovers.

The bigger ongoing ad budgets come from construction, car dealerships, and firms in the business to business segments of the economy, according to Yandex.

Those budgets aren’t huge in number yet, totalling only $210 million. But they have doubled year after year since 2005, showing a growing acceptance of contextual advertising by Russian companies. Their advertisements have been displayed to viewers about 140 million times per day on weekdays, Yandex said.