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mode on all services to thirty minutes. United Media Agency is managing the licensing of the content on Mail.ru behalf. Reportedly now Mail.ru has bought 20% in UMA for RUB1.4bn ($22mn), with the remaining 80% controlled by Oleg Butenko and funds Crescent & Star Investment Company and Highland Falls Investment. However, it is unlikely that music streaming is a high-margin business for Mail.ru, as sources in the music industry previously told Vedomosti daily that most of the revenues are paid in royalties to copyright holders.
Russia's most valuable tech company , internet services major Yandex , reported solid financial results in the second quarter of 2018 and improved performance guidance for the rest of the year. For 2018, excluding Yandex.Market, Yandex now estimates top line growth at 30-35% y/y with Search and Portal revenue expected to increase 20-22% y/y. "A strong operational performance and new guidance that implies 30-35% top line growth in 2018 (excluding Yandex.Market) will likely be positively received by investors," Aton Equity argued on July 26. Yandex revenues gained 34% year-on-year to RUB29.7bn ($472mn) and beating consensus expectation by 4.5%. Top line growth was driven by strong Taxi revenue growth (+426% y/y) as well as solid Classifieds and Media Services segment performances (+101% and 57%, respectively), while Search and Portal showed improving q/q revenue momentum (22.4% in 2Q18 vs 19.4% in 1Q18), Aton Equity commented. At the same time company's e-commerce shrank 62% y/y as Yandex deconsolidated the results of Yandex.Market after the creation of a joint venture with Russia's largest bank Sberbank . Online advertising revenue gained 17% and generated 83% of Yandex’s total top line.
Content recommendation service of Yandex.Zen of Russian internet major Yandex could post RUB4bn ($63mn) in revenues in 2018, the company said on July 5 based on the run rate estimates for the month of May. Yandex.Zen is feeding to users AI-selected content, which also includes links to content providers such as publishers, authors, and brands. Now Yandex will extract Yandex.Zen to a separate division of the company. The service doubled the number of its users to 13mn in one year, with desktop users spending 20 minutes a day on the feed and mobile users 35 minutes a day. Yandex compares this to average 42 minutes spent on Facebook and 26 minutes on Instagram.
Browser company Opera filed for an IPO in the US, planning to raise up to $115mn, according to reports on June 4. The company made $129mn in revenues and net income of $6.1mn in 2017. Opera has about 182mn monthly active users across its mobile products, 57.4mn monthly active users for its desktop browser and 90.2mn users for Opera News in its browsers and standalone app, according to TechCrunch.
Russian mobile operator MegaFon has launched the MegaFon.Travels (MegaFon.Puteshestviya) service , which would allow its subscribers to book flights, hotels or pre-packaged tours abroad selected by partner aggregators such as Hotellook, Level Travel, and others. In 2017, following the dive due to sanctions, income and ruble weakening, the number of Russians holidaying abroad has recovered and has almost passed its pre-crisis peak. In January-June 2017 17.1mn Russian tourists went abroad, up by 30% year-on-year. The numbers could further increase in 2018 with the air travelling to Egypt restored and a ban on charter flights to Turkey lifted . MegaFon has entered the booking segment amid another much-publicised wave of
82 RUSSIA Country Report August 2018 www.intellinews.com