AndyRussia is the second largest online market in Europe, and the seventh largest in the world, according to a set of slides produced by Russian search engine Yandex.
By the end of 2010, there were 60 million internet users in Russia, compared with 65 million in Germany and 51 million in the UK. What makes this exciting is that 60 million is a far smaller percentage of Russia’s population than 65 million is as a percentage of Germany’s population. Take a look at this slide, and you’ll get a great idea of how potential there is for growth in Russia’s internet user base – something that’s bound to interest investors.
I was also impressed to see how well Yandex has managed to resist Google’s attempts to enter the Russian search engine market. Google looked like it was really on the rise between 2005 and 2008, and both Yandex and Rambler.ru looked to be rapidly losing market share. But while Rambler’s slide into obscurity continued (they’ve got a pitiful 2% share of the market today), Yandex managed to innovate and not only regain their market share, but prevent Google from increasing theirs.
If you’re at all interested in Russia’s internet market, I’d recommend checking out the full set of slides, which I’ve embedded below. Lots of useful information there about the Russian pay per click (PPC) advertising market as well, where Yandex also seems to have a strong lead over Google.
Hat Tip to Nick Wilsdon of Russian Marketer, who posted a link to the slides on his twitter account earlier this morning.
That’s interesting, considering Boris Nemtsov’s contention in a recent interview that Putin’s base is “mostly the older generation, those who rely on government sinecures, who hardly ever use the internet and watch pro-Kremlin TV”. But the proportion of Russians over 65 is only around 13%, and Putin’s approval rating is over 70%.
Pretty hard to make that assessment and these figures come anywhere close to one another.
Depends how you define the ‘older generation’, I suppose. If you’re a 20 year old protester, anyone over 40 is going to be in the ‘older generation’.
Although Putin has a fairly broad-based appeal to all generation, I have a hunch that his strongest support will come from people in the 40-60 age range.
I’ve no stats to back that up mind – does anyone have any poll data on political preferences by age?