Video International Finds Yandex

A subsidiary of the Video International group of companies will start in 2006 selling advertising at Yandex, Russia’s largest Internet portal. Experts forecast that IMHO Video International will hold 40 percent of the advertising market of the Russian Internet. The appearance of the major media seller at the market will attract big advertisers to the net and be to advantage to other large Internet resources.

Yandex is currently Russia’s major Internet portal, whose main service is a search system. 20 million people visit it monthly, 80 percent of which reside in Russia, and 10 percent live in the CIS.

Sergey Vasilyev, director general of Video International, told Kommersant yesterday that his company had reached a general agreement with executives of Yandex and the two companies were planning to sign a contract. The management of Yandex confirmed the information and said that they are now discussing a long-term strategic partnership with Video International. IMHO VI also reported that they are now negotiating with a number of other Russia’s leading Internet portals, such as Mail.ru, Rambler, RBK, Gazeta.Ru, Newsru.com and Afisha.ru.

Video International is leading major Russian advertisers to the Russian Internet which has been uncharted waters for them until recently. Video International predicts that the Internet advertising market will soon become buoyant. The Association of Communication Agencies of Russia also backs the information of the advertisers. They estimate that the Internet advertising market in Russia amounted to $30 million in 2004, 67 percent up compared to the previous year.