Russia's leading internet search engine, Yandex, will take the fight to Google in emerging markets like Turkey in a bid to offset the inroads made by the U.S. giant in its home market.
Yandex founder and chief executive Arkady Volozh told Reuters on Friday the firm was likely to use its own experts to expand into new countries, but would not rule out acquisitions or partnership deals.
"We are focusing on the markets with Google dominance in search where they have 90-plus percent market share," Volozh said in an interview in Dublin, adding Yandex would stress to consumers the dangers of one firm dominating the internet.
Yandex is currently focusing on Turkey, where it has eked out a 1 percent market share since it entered the market last year. It describes this as a base for a significant expansion and says it will look to other large markets where it sees no real competition to Google, though Volozh refused to name them.
Yandex, which raised $1.4 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) in New York last year, has seen its share of the Russian search market fall to 60 percent in the second quarter from 64 percent a year earlier, according to LiveInternet.
That is partly due to inroads made by Google.
"We'll be growing 30 percent or something next year, but it's not doubling every year as we used to have four or five years ago. We need to find some new markets, new opportunities it could improve our revenues dramatically," Volozh said.
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