Yandex revenue continues to slow in Q1 2013 – up 36% to $257m – but profit rises 79% to $72m

Russian Internet giant Yandex continued to sees its growth slow after it reported first quarter 2013 revenues of RUR 8.0 billion ($257.3 million), up 36 percent year-on-year, however its net income of RUR 2.2 billion ($72.2 million), is a 79 percent increase on a year previous.

The figures are lower than those of the previous quarter — during which it posted revenues of RUR 8.8 billion ($290.4 million) and profits of RUR 2.7 billion ($88.6 million) — which itself represented a fairly significant slowing of growth from the company, which runs Russia’s top search engine and a range of Web services.

Away from financials, the company says its share of Russia’s search market is now at 61.6 percent — up 2.2 percent over the last year — while average search engine results pages are up 25 percent from the first quarter of 2012. The company says its advertising customer base has grown to 226,000 partners, which is a 26 percent rise on Q1 2012 and an increase of 6 percent on the last quarter.

Indeed, Yandex saw its advertising revenues equal those of First Channel (“Pervyi Telekanal”), the country’s leading TV channel, for the first time last year, indicating that the Internet has become an important medium for companies as more Russians begin using the Web.

“Yandex is off to an excellent start in 2013 with strong financial results and important product improvements,” said company CEO Arkady Volozh.

Q1 2013 was a significant period for the company, as it launched a redesign of its Yandex.ru homepage and a program to repurchase 12 million shares.

The company expanded its considerable arsenal of services at Mobile World Congress in February, when it launched Yandex.Store, its alternative Android app store with an initial 50,000 plus applications. Last month, it launched Twym, a money-transfer service for Twitter, which is faring a whole lot better than Wonder, the voice-controlled app for Facebook that was quickly removed from the social network for violating Facebook policy.

More details on the financials come via the press release below:

Yandex Announces First Quarter 2013 Financial Results

MOSCOW AND THE HAGUE, April 25, 2013, Yandex (NASDAQ: YNDX), one of Europe’s largest internet companies and the leading search provider in Russia, today announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013.

Q1 2013 Financial Highlights

• Revenues of RUR 8.0 billion ($257.3 million1), up 36% compared with Q1 2012

• Ex-TAC revenues2 (excluding traffic acquisition costs), up 37% compared with Q1 2012

• Income from operations of RUR 2.5 billion ($78.9 million), up 57% compared with Q1 2012

• Adjusted EBITDA3 of RUR 3.5 billion ($112.7 million), up 47% compared with Q1 2012

• Operating margin of 30.7%

• Adjusted EBITDA margin2 of 43.8%

• Adjusted ex-TAC EBITDA margin2 of 52.3%

• Net income of RUR 2.2 billion ($72.2 million), up 79% compared with Q1 2012

• Adjusted net income3 of RUR 2.4 billion ($77.5 million), up 60% compared with Q1 2012

• Net income margin of 28.1%

• Adjusted net income margin2 of 30.1%

• Adjusted ex-TAC net income margin2 of 36.0%

• Cash, deposits and investments in debt securities of RUR 29.3 billion ($942.6 million) as of March 31, 2013

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