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Slightly off topic, but I was shocked at how small Yandex's revenues are, given that they're basically a Google and an Uber for a major region. USD 4.94 billion

Slightly off topic, but I was shocked at how small Yandex's revenues are, given that they're basically a Google and an Uber for a major region. USD 4.94 billion in 2021. That's a large company, but for a major tech company, I thought they'd be at least 10x bigger than that. ServiceNow earns more: https://companiesmarketcap.com/servicenow/revenue/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/servicenow/revenue/ Are my expectations of earnings for large global tech companies unrealistic, is this a currency valuation issue, or something else? This was very surprising to me.

eunos 5y ago
Isn't Yandex only limited in Russia mostly? Economically they aren't big. Weibo, a Twitter like platform that serves a billion Chinese only earn 3B USD I believe.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Unlike China, Russia isn’t a closed market. For now. Google search has about 2/3rds of what yandex has in Russia: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1094920/leading-search-engines-by-visits-share-russia/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1094920/leading-search-e...
  - paganel 5y ago
    > Google search has about 2/3rds of what yandex has in Russia: They'll most probably block it, too, I'll give it a day or two. It also depends how the negotiations with the Ukrainian side go over the weekend.
th3iedkid 5y ago
Maybe it’s the USD conversion that seems to be skew it outward.All their ledgers/operations/everything would be in Russia local currency.
dillondoyle 5y ago
I think it's mostly because Russia's gdp is only 1.48t usd according to google. Most of that is natural resources sounds like they have a pretty small consumer economy for a country that huge. Google says google's annual rev is 256.7b while US gdp is 20.94t. So is this math correct? Yandex rev as % of gdp 5bb/1.48tt = .337%, google rev as % of gdp 256bb/20.94tt = .855% I might have guessed even less given how much more tech companies make even between a US consumer and even somewhere like Europe. Fb is $48/15 in one quarter, I couldn't find one quickly for google https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB-Earnings-Presentation-Q1-2021.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB...
- ausudhz 5y ago
  GDP alone means little to nothing, should be actually compared to the purchase parity power. In that regards Russia is not that bad: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP... But of course this affect the way you see at numbers on an absolute value
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    > In that regards Russia is not that bad Was not that bad.
    - ausudhz 5y ago
      Is still the case actually, if they only consume non-imported goods they won't see the difference that much. They have been outside of the global economy for decades during the cold war, they definitely know how to decouple. The problem is that this world is different than the previous one
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Interesting I didn't know that term. That would definitely take more into account the size of their consumer market instead of Russia's being mostly state or oligarch owned extraction businesses. But I think on the other hand also still shows the relative value? Like say for example - numbers not real. If the purchasing power needed to buy one shirt in RU is $10, and $30 in US, than the max amount of ad profit would be in line with those profit margins. So FB can charge more for a buy my shirt ad in the US, because the ad buyer can spend more in real $ terms
kingcharles 5y ago
Russia is a sheep in wolf's clothing. They play a great PR game that makes them look like a superpower playing with the big boys, but their GDP isn't that big.
nostromo 5y ago
Texas has a larger GDP than Russia. Imagine if you were the search engine for Texas. It’d be a nice business, but not massive.
- dvh 5y ago
  I'm curious, what kind of features would "search for Texas" have to have to make 90% people switch from Google?
  - dottedmag 5y ago
    Better language support if Texas had its own language. Note that people in Russia didn't switch from Google to Yandex: people in Russia switched from Yandex (and Rambler) to Google once Google has developed capabilities to search in Russian. Russian is flective language, so it's not trivial.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    Yandex predates Google. So the question is not really making 90% of people switch from Google but making 90% of people stay on Yandex. Inertia is a pretty big stumbling block. There is also potential for local differentiation to be much stronger. Naver in South Korea manages to achieve this.
    - codedokode 5y ago
      Yandex also paid to browser and smartphone vendors to be installed as a default search engine.
  - phtrivier 5y ago
    Promote very very local news, venues, events ? Take the rural / urban répartition of texas into account, rather than California's one ? To put it bluntly, be ostensibly "more red" than google (even though you would end up giving most of the same result, because the state is way more purple than expected) ?
paxys 5y ago
Major American tech companies are prevalent across much of the developed world. Yandex is used only in Russia which has a much lower population and individual purchasing power.
jdrc 5y ago
anywhere outside US, CA , aus and western europe, advertising costs are 10 times less or even much much lower. it s a very uneven distribution

eunos 5y ago

Isn't Yandex only limited in Russia mostly? Economically they aren't big. Weibo, a Twitter like platform that serves a billion Chinese only earn 3B USD I believe.

Scoundreller 5y ago
Unlike China, Russia isn’t a closed market. For now. Google search has about 2/3rds of what yandex has in Russia: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1094920/leading-search-engines-by-visits-share-russia/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1094920/leading-search-e...
- paganel 5y ago
  > Google search has about 2/3rds of what yandex has in Russia: They'll most probably block it, too, I'll give it a day or two. It also depends how the negotiations with the Ukrainian side go over the weekend.

th3iedkid 5y ago

Maybe it’s the USD conversion that seems to be skew it outward.All their ledgers/operations/everything would be in Russia local currency.

dillondoyle 5y ago

I think it's mostly because Russia's gdp is only 1.48t usd according to google. Most of that is natural resources sounds like they have a pretty small consumer economy for a country that huge. Google says google's annual rev is 256.7b while US gdp is 20.94t. So is this math correct? Yandex rev as % of gdp 5bb/1.48tt = .337%, google rev as % of gdp 256bb/20.94tt = .855% I might have guessed even less given how much more tech companies make even between a US consumer and even somewhere like Europe. Fb is $48/15 in one quarter, I couldn't find one quickly for google https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB-Earnings-Presentation-Q1-2021.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB...

ausudhz 5y ago
GDP alone means little to nothing, should be actually compared to the purchase parity power. In that regards Russia is not that bad: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP... But of course this affect the way you see at numbers on an absolute value
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  > In that regards Russia is not that bad Was not that bad.
  - ausudhz 5y ago
    Is still the case actually, if they only consume non-imported goods they won't see the difference that much. They have been outside of the global economy for decades during the cold war, they definitely know how to decouple. The problem is that this world is different than the previous one
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  Interesting I didn't know that term. That would definitely take more into account the size of their consumer market instead of Russia's being mostly state or oligarch owned extraction businesses. But I think on the other hand also still shows the relative value? Like say for example - numbers not real. If the purchasing power needed to buy one shirt in RU is $10, and $30 in US, than the max amount of ad profit would be in line with those profit margins. So FB can charge more for a buy my shirt ad in the US, because the ad buyer can spend more in real $ terms

kingcharles 5y ago

Russia is a sheep in wolf's clothing. They play a great PR game that makes them look like a superpower playing with the big boys, but their GDP isn't that big.

nostromo 5y ago

Texas has a larger GDP than Russia. Imagine if you were the search engine for Texas. It’d be a nice business, but not massive.

dvh 5y ago
I'm curious, what kind of features would "search for Texas" have to have to make 90% people switch from Google?
- dottedmag 5y ago
  Better language support if Texas had its own language. Note that people in Russia didn't switch from Google to Yandex: people in Russia switched from Yandex (and Rambler) to Google once Google has developed capabilities to search in Russian. Russian is flective language, so it's not trivial.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  Yandex predates Google. So the question is not really making 90% of people switch from Google but making 90% of people stay on Yandex. Inertia is a pretty big stumbling block. There is also potential for local differentiation to be much stronger. Naver in South Korea manages to achieve this.
  - codedokode 5y ago
    Yandex also paid to browser and smartphone vendors to be installed as a default search engine.
- phtrivier 5y ago
  Promote very very local news, venues, events ? Take the rural / urban répartition of texas into account, rather than California's one ? To put it bluntly, be ostensibly "more red" than google (even though you would end up giving most of the same result, because the state is way more purple than expected) ?

paxys 5y ago

Major American tech companies are prevalent across much of the developed world. Yandex is used only in Russia which has a much lower population and individual purchasing power.

jdrc 5y ago

anywhere outside US, CA , aus and western europe, advertising costs are 10 times less or even much much lower. it s a very uneven distribution