Page 10 - bne_Tech_07_2018

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July 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
At the heart of Kiwi.com’s business is its proprietary algorithm, designed by its software engineers in Brno – a centre of the Czech IT industry. Its flight search algorithm allows users to automatically comb flights offered by more
than 650 airlines, including many budget carriers that do not normally collaborate with each other, into a single itinerary in a process it calls “virtual interlining”.
Yandex-affiliated browser Opera files for IPO in US
Browser company Opera filed for an IPO in the US, planning to raise up to $115mn.
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.
"The story is making headlines in Russia because, while we know that Yandex has been paying
Opera to make it the preferred browser partner
in Russia, the exact amount was unknown," BCS Global Markets said in a note.
Opera's prospectus disclosed that Yandex is the company's second-largest revenue source with 10% of revenue in the first quarter and Google at about 45%.
BCS sees the news as not material for Yandex especially as Opera has been losing market share in Russia and now accounts for about 6% share.
Instead, the analysts at BCS look forward to see- ing Yandex second-quarter results that will be consolidated with the numbers of Yandex.Market joint venture with Sberbank. Yandex.Market gen- erated a slight Ebitda loss in the first quarter and presumably this would have continued in April.
More losses could come to Yandex from ongoing integration of Yandex.Taxi and Uber joint venture, which was still underway in the second quarter, which could be counter-balanced by one-off bump in taxi revenues during the World Cup.
In February Yandex topped the ranking of Forbes annual list of most valuable Russian technology companies. The Russian language version of
the magazine estimated the company’s worth at $12.38bn, ahead of the $11.2bn it was valued at when it floated in London in 2012.
Yandex shares were also recently supported by
a buy-back offer announcement, with a $100mn 12-month share buyback programme approved by the company.