Yandex Named a 2008 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum

MOSCOW, Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Yandex, Russia's most popular search engine, has been named a 2008 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, which will hold its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January.

"We are delighted with this recognition," said Arkady Volozh, Yandex co- founder and CEO. "This confirms that Russia's star as a technical innovator continues to shine bright."

With over 28 million Internet users, Russia is one of the largest and fastest growing Internet markets in the world. Russia is one of only a small handful of countries where a local search player has preserved its leading position in the face of significant investments by global search and portal players. Yandex has held its share of Internet searches in Russia above 55 percent for the last three years.

"This award is really a credit to the creativity and drive of the Yandex team," said Ilya Segalovich, Yandex co-founder and CTO. "Russia has always been prominent in computer science, and we are fortunate to have a talented team dedicated to creating world-class services for our Russian-speaking audience. The fact that Yandex is delivering these services via a profitable, advertising-supported business is a testament to our long-term strength."

Yandex was selected from a field of 273 nominees from a number of industries including energy, the environment, biotechnology, health and information technology. Past winners in the IT category include Google, Mozilla Corporation and Encore Software. The entire list of this year's 38 winners can be found at www.weforum.org/en/about/Technology%20Pioneers/index.htm.

About Yandex

Yandex is a leading Internet portal and search engine in Russia with approximately 6 million unique visitors per day. In addition to search, the company provides users with other specialized services including blog hosting, photo and email hosting, news aggregation service, maps, a comparison shopping system, an online payment system and social networking. Yandex also supports Yandex.WiFi, the largest free hotspot network in Russia. To find out more about Yandex, please visit: company.yandex.com.

About The World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a foundation in 1971, and based in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum is impartial and not for-profit; it is tied to no political, partisan or national interests (www.weforum.org).