Bismarck Brief

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Russia’s Yandex is a Functional Software Conglomerate
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Russia’s Yandex is a Functional Software Conglomerate

The software conglomerate beat Google in free market competition at home while carving out niches abroad. The Russian government is locking in this success while maintaining political control.

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Samo Burja
May 01, 2024
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Bismarck Brief
Bismarck Brief
Russia’s Yandex is a Functional Software Conglomerate
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Yandex self-driving “robotaxi” in Innopolis, Russia in 2020. Source.

Yandex is the single largest Russian software company, reporting an annual revenue of $7.4 billion in 2022.1 Most well known for its search engine, Yandex Search takes 70% of market share in Russia, with an estimated 395 million monthly active users around the world as of July 2023.2 Often referred to as “Russia’s Google,” Yandex also offers a web browser, maps, news, translation, cloud storage, music, and an e-commerce platform. It is also “Russia’s Uber” and now dominates the region’s taxi services, with its ride-hailing app outcompeting traditional taxis.3 The company also has its own venture capital arm, has released its own large language model akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and is pursuing robotic delivery and self-driving cars. Its only major Russian software competitor is VK, a company that runs the country’s social media. Unlike China’s search and social media companies, which benefited from government bans of U.S. competitors like Google, both Yandex and VK defeated their rivals in open competition in the Russian market from the early 2000s to the late 2010s—some of the few non-U.S. software companies to ever achieve this.

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