What is known about Russian Internet

  • Users

    Monthly audience: the number of people who have Internet access. Data based on offline polls.

  • Broadband

    Broadband connections share, based on offline polls.

  • .Ru domains

    Number of domains in .Ru zone, based on open stats from local internet registry.

44mln1

37% of pop.2

76%3

83% in big cities

3,05mln4

88,3% delegated

  • Ads Annual

    Aggregate annual volume of two market segments of Russian Internet advertising (banner and contextual ads), based on open data.

  • Ad spendings

    How much one user's attention costs for Russian advertisers per year, based on open data.

$598mln5

59,4% of search and content ads

$14,2

/ per user

  • Hot search topics6

    Rating of search themes in 2009, by Yandex. Data are based on groups of search queries that have fastest popularity growth during the year. Don't mix up this data with the most popular queries in absolute figures. Click on each line to see more related topics.

  • Zeitgeist-20097

    Search queries that had been rising faster than any other in 12 months of 2009, according to Google Russia. Each word in chart is clickable.

translated from Russian

20,900,600 New Year
Most related search topics: New Year 2010, Happy New Year, Chinese New Year, New Year greetings.
9,086,600 Homework Keys (HWK)
Most related search topics: homework keys, Russian language homework keys, algebra homework keys, 8th grade homework keys.
7,805,700 Eurovision 2009
Most related search topics: Eurovision 2009, Junior Eurovision 2009, Eurovision 2009 songs, download Eurovision 2009.
6,319,700 Unified State Exam (USE-2009)
Most related search topics: State exam 2009, Russian language State Exam 2009, download State Exam 2009.
6,038,900 GTA 4
Most related search topics: download GTA 4, GTA 4 free download, GTA 4 patch, game GTA 4.
4,066,200 International Women's Day
Most related search topics: International Women's Day March 8, International Women's Day events, history of International Women's Day.
4,061,600 The Sims 3
Most related search topics: download The Sims 3, The Sims 3 free download, game The Sims 3, additions to The Sims 3.
3,784,000 Swine flu
Most related search topics: swine flu symptoms, swine flu vaccination, swine flu shot, swine flu in Russia.
3,543,700 Defender of the Fatherland Day
Defender of the Fatherland Day Most related search topics: Defender of the Fatherland Day greetings, Defender of the Fatherland Day event program, Defender of the Fatherland Day holiday.
2,875,100 St. Valentine's Day
Most related search topics: Saint Valentine's Day greetings, Saint Valentine's Day movie, Saint Valentine's Day presents, Saint Valentine's Day pictures.
windows 7
The most used words along with ‘windows 7’, according to Yandex, are: ‘windows 7 download’, ‘windows 7 for free’, and ‘driver updates for windows’.
одноклассники: моя страница (classmates)
The name of the second largest social network in Russia. For further information click Odnoklassniki.ru link in Local heroes section.
майл [mail.ru]
One of the major sites of Russian Internet. For further information click Mail.ru link in Local heroes section.
вконтакте [vkonkakte.ru]
The name of the most popular social network in Russia. For further information click Vkontakte.ru link in Local heroes section.
фильмы онлайн (movies online)
Overwhelming part of users who search for ‘movies’, mean that they need sites where they can download movies for free.
торрент (torrent)
In 2009 torrents became the most popular way of downloading large volume of data for russian users. Meanwhile, the word ‘download’ (‘скачать’ in Russian) is the still the most used word in search queries in general, according to Yandex Wordstat.
переводчик онлайн (online translate)
There’s a lot of content in English part of Internet, which has strong demand and still hasn’t been translated into Russian. The knowledge of English isn’t the common place for Russian audience, so online translating services are popular.
работа в россии (jobs in russia)
The most used words along with ‘jobs’, according to Yandex, are: ‘moscow vacancies’, ‘job search’, and ‘student jobs’.
евровидение 2009 (eurovision 2009)
Eurovision song contest, traditionally popular in Russia.
opera 10
One the most popular browsers in Russia, according to Liveinternet.ru data.
  • Local heroes8

    These portals have the largest and fast-growing audience on the Russian Internet. Each name in the list is clickable.

  • Global zeroes10

    These companies from Quantcast Top-15 are total losers of the Russian Internet market. None of the chart is known by the mass audience. Site names in the list are clickable.

in alphabetic order

  1. Google.ru9

    Google translated its interface into Russian in 2001 and in last 9 years grew its search market share from 5% to 22%. Now it is the only real competitor to the market leader — Yandex.
    Company does not separate Russian advertising sales in its global financial statements. According to Vedomosti newspaper, Google.ru made $70mln in revenue in 2009.

    www.google.ru
  2. Mail.ru

    One of two most visited sites, the largest e-mail and communication portal in country, Mail.ru provides more than 40 services to its audience. It has own social network MoiMir, photo-, blog- and video hostings and one of the most popular instant messaging services — Mail.ru Agent.
    The main business model of Mail.ru is banner (media) advertising. Mail.ru is a private company and does not publish its financial statements. In 2009 Mail.ru made $126,4 mln in revenue.

    www.mail.ru
  3. Odnoklassniki.ru

    Odnoklassniki (Russian word “Classmates”) is one of the two most successful social networks in Russia, with more than 50 million accounts, and is one of very few significant newcomers in the market. This site tries different business-models, including banner advertising and some original premium services, like micro-payments for using graphical smiles in short text messages. In 2009 Odnoklassniki.ru made $48,6 mln in revenue. In 2008 company had net income of $6,9 mln, Vedomosti newspaper reported.

    www.odnoklassniki.ru
  4. vKontakte.ru

    Launched in 2006 as a Russian clone of Facebook, Vkontakte has some very popular features that Facebook doesn’t – e.g., mp3 hosting. It is the largest personal photosharing site and the fastest-growing social network in Russia.
    Being Portal #3 in the country, in Saint-Petersburg Vkontakte is more popular than any other Russian Internet site.
    In 2009 Vkontakte made $34,5 mln in revenue and expects 60% growth in 2010.

    www.vkontakte.ru
  5. Yandex.ru

    Yandex is Russia’s largest internet company and the oldest one in this chart. Yandex owns the most popular search engine in Russia, has about 50 internet-services, more than 2000 employees and made $278 mln in revenue in 2009. Yandex' main business model is search and contextual advertising — in this market segment Yandex is estimated to have more than 75-80% of market share.

    www.yandex.ru
  1. Yahoo, Live.com, MSN, AOL, Ask
    Having a lot of local content and smart technologies, Russian domestic portals are extremely good in keeping their dominant positions in the market. Almost none of the major world portals and search engines (except Google) achieved success in the country. Search market share in Russia of any member of this group of companies, according to Liveinternet.ru, do not exceed 0,5%.
  2. Facebook, MySpace
    Some of the most active users of Russian social networks have their accounts on Facebook and MySpace. But that’s nothing in comparison with dozens of millions of user profiles in Russian networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. It seems that Facebook and MySpace showed up late with their localized versions and had lost the moment when Russian Internet audience was ready to create accounts anywhere.
  3. eBay
    It’s not eBay fault that online auctions in Russia are probably the form of online business that grows the most slowly. Lack of user confidence in buying used stuff combined with abscence of peer-to-peer logitistics system seems to be critical - none of local players succeeded much in this sphere too.
  4. Blogspot.com
    Top local blog-hostings – Livejournal.com (Russian-owned) and Liveinternet.ru – collected their core audience a lot earlier than Blogspot.com interface was translated in Russian. Besides, standalone blog platforms are not very popular in Russia generally, and Blogspot is not an exception.
  5. Craigslist.org
    Russian online classifieds are still in the embryonic stage. To sell a car, people print their ads in special classifieds newspaper, like ‘Iz ruk v ruki’ (‘From hands to hands’). It is noteworthy that ‘Iz ruk v ruki’ search query remains in Top-100 most popular searches made by local audience.
  6. About.com, Answers.com
    The major part of content needed by Russian users must be written in Russian, so these sites do not have any audience in Russia.
  7. Mapquest.com
    Content is the king in online maps and other cartographic services. Mapquest.com doesn’t have one for the Russian audience, so it has no audience.
  • Miscellaneous facts

    Different facts about Russian Internet that are not common knowledge outside of Russia. Each fact is clickable.

  • Strong local technologies
    High standards of math, engineering and computer science education in Russia makes local IT-specialists well-known in a lot of countries and drives to technological parity between local and global market players. Partly because of this, all the top-ranked global leaders in any kind of Internet services are failed to be the first in the Russian Internet. See more in Local heroes / Global zeroes section.
  • Cyrillic content
    Due to large number of non-english-speakers, almost all of Russian sites are written only in Cyrillic alphabet, and most of the search queries are made in Russian.
  • Unlimited statistics
    A lot of Russian Internet parameters are measured and there are much more stats open and available than in the Global Net.
  • No prepayments for online goods
    Because of the absence of countrywide-used Internet payment system, fear of credit card frauds over the Internet and low confidence in virtual payments at all, most of users prefer cash-on-delivery model when buying goods online.
  • High social activity11
    Two thirds of Russian users have at least one social network profile.
  • More facts ↓
  • Visible role of regions12
    33% of .Ru domains are owned by webmasters from Russia’s remote regions (not from Moscow and Saint-Petersburg).
  • Growing mobile usage13
    11% of cell phone owners use their mobile devices for Internet connection. Mobile sites content grew 2,2 times in 2008 and is expected to double again in 2009.
  • Less facts ↑
  • Reliable sources

    These organizations have proven to be the most objective and precise in their studies. Most of their data is considered by major market players, analysts and media as credible. Each company in the list is clickable.

  • Doubtful sources

    Most data of these companies is not considered as trustworthy inside the market. Each company in the list is clickable.

  • Federal State Statistics

    The most powerful research institution in Russia, owned by the state. The system of state statistics covers district, regional and federal levels, as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg. It comprises 89 regional committees and 2,200 district departments. The Federal State Statistics Service employs about 30 thousand staff.

  • Liveinternet.ru

    Liveinternet.ru aggregates data from about half a million sites and for now it is the only online counter, which has reliable search engine usage stats for the Russian Internet.

  • Public Opinion Foundation
    The only one strong offline sociological company which conducts regular representational polls on Russian Internet usage. POF (known as ‘FOM’ in Russia) gathers data on the urban and rural populations through the extensive network of its regional branches and partner organizations situated in almost all regions of Russia.
  • RACA
    The Russian Association of Communication Agencies (RACA), is a non-profit organization uniting 168 member advertising and marketing communications companies. Member companies of RACA account for the lion's share of the country's advertising spend. RACA is the only organization with reliable data on Russian advertising market.
  • TNS Group
    TNS Web Index is a unique project in Russia that combines online and offline methods to examine Internet audience size, preferences and behavior. TNS data seize Russian cities with 100k+ pop., and there are more than 200 popular web-sites that installed TNS online counter, including all major portals. TNS measuring methodology is the only one that won recognition from all the large Russian sites.
  • Alexa
    Due to extremely low popularity of Alexa tools among Russian users, Alexa’s data is high volatile and completely not representative.
  • Comcon, Masmi, Romir
    Most reports of these researchers group are based on different type of polls (like online polls or focus-groups). Their data considered by some market players (e.g., Mail.ru) to be good in single-value studies, but generally provided stats represent only the pro-active part of the whole net audience, and, as consequence, are not trustful in exploring global trends and figures of Russian Internet.
  • comScore
    As comScore specialists publicly confirmed on Russian Internet and Business Conference in 2008, comScore users panel in Russia mainly consists of English-speaking people due to the nature of comScore sign-up process. comScore promised to extend the number of non-english-speaking panelists, so situation with comScore data representativeness might change in coming years.
  • Gemius
    Like TNS Group, Gemius methodology is based on combining user-centered and site-centered user data aggregation. However, Gemius online counter isn’t yet installed on most of the major sites in Russia, and on the whole Gemius stats on Runet are still one-sided.
  • Search traffic14

    The only available method to evaluate search engine market share — measurements of the audience volume every engine directs to Russian Internet sites. Valuations made by this method may differ from one online stats service to another. Liveinternet.ru data is thought as of most reliable at the moment.

  • Mail, Networks, IMs

    Communication services sector is not the one that is measured well in Russian Internet. Social services evaluate their audience by very different methods and there are almost no independent and trustful figures on them. Every service name in the list is clickable — click to know some of existing data.

  • Ad platforms15

    Estimation of advertising impression volume on partner sites of major contextual advertising systems.

Search traffic
  1. Yandex (incl. Yandex.Images)
  2. Google (incl. Google Images)
  3. Mail.ru
  4. Rambler
  5. Other
Free webmail services
  1. Mail.ru
    The largest e-mail service in Russia, belongs to like-named portal. Daily audience exceeds 7 million users, according to TNS.
  2. Yandex.Mail
    The second largest e-mail service, belongs to Yandex. Daily audience is about 2,5 mln users, according to TNS.
Social networks
  1. vKontakte.ru
    Vkontakte.ru has more than 90 million accounts (based on their own data) and 9,9 mln users a day (TNS Group, december 2009). Click Vkontakte.ru link in Top heroes section for some additional info.
  2. Odnoklassniki.ru
    Odnoklassniki.ru has more than 50 million accounts and 5,3 mln users a day (TNS Group, december 2009). Click Odnoklassniki.ru link in Top heroes section for some additional info.
Internet pagers
  1. ICQ
    ICQ is the most popular messenger in Russia. It has several million users and it’s protocol OSCAR is used by some alternative internet pagers, like QIP and Miranda (both are also extremely popular in Russia).
  2. Mail.ru Agent
    Mail.ru Agent, messenger made by leading communication portal Mail.ru, is the main rival to ICQ in Russia. According to Mail.ru own data, it has more than one million simultaneous users online.
Ad platforms
  1. Google Adsense
  2. Begun
  3. Yandex Adv. Network
  • Important news

    Some noticeable news from Russian Internet market.

  • 1/ Russian Internet audience, monthly reach, 18+. Public Opinion Foundation, 30th 'Internet in Russia' research, summer 2010
  • 2/ Russian population data by Federal State Statistics Service, 2010
  • 3/ Offline poll, POF, February 2010
  • 4/ RU-Center. RU TLD: Russian statistics on domains, registration and delegation. Stat.nic.ru, Autumn 2010
  • 5/ Russian Internet advertising market volume. Russian Association of Communication Agencies (RACA) & Video International Analytical Center combined data, 2009
  • 6/ 2009 Year-End Yandex.Interests.
  • 7/ 2009 Year-End Google Zeitgeist for Russia
  • 8/ Measured by TNS Group – with exceptions. Almost all major players of the Russian Internet agreed to be measured by independent media-measurement company (TNS Group) and to give access to their audience data to anybody. The only one exception is Google, see Footnote 9
  • 9/ Google Russia is the only company in this chart that doesn't publish any open data about it's audience. Liveinternet.ru search traffic stats are only indirect data available on Google market share
  • 10/ Quantcast.com, Top sites by audience in the USA
  • 11/ Popularity of Russian social networks, data by Internet and Business Association (A-IB), 2009
  • 12/ Based on Stat.nic.ru data
  • 13/ Russian mobile Internet penetration, combined data by Nielsen NetRatings and Internet and Business Association (A-IB), 2009
  • 14/ Search engines traffic generation in Russia, Liventernet.ru monthly data, January 2012
  • 15/ Ashmanov & Partners JSC, 2008

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