We're all very familiar with the big players in US tech, but there are plenty of up and coming brands internationally that you may not be as familiar with. If you're not yet aware of Yandex, you will be soon, and you should start now.
Yandex is, for all intents and purposes, Russia's Google. Just like Google, the majority of their revenues come from advertising thats fed on their search site. Now that they have started disclosing results after their IPO in May, they are posting very impressive numbers. Revenue is up 65%, and net income is up 93% year over year.
They're doing some interesting things on the social indexing side as well that are steps ahead of their competitors. Having reached an agreement with the largest social networking site in Russia, Vkontake, they can connect directly to the user's publicly disclosed information and feed it through to search results. Something that Bing is working on with Facebook.
They also launched a start-up program sort of like TechStars. They get an inside look at new technology and a chance to work with top developing talent first, which has led to many acquisitions as we will see next.
Yandex has gotten more acquisitive over the last 2 yearspulling in about 2 companies a year, and more this coming year.
We gave a more in depth analysis of Yandex in our December M&A Webinar, which you can find here: http://www.corumgroup.com/Software-MA-Webinar-Archive.aspx.