By Gleb Stolyarov and Alexander Marrow
(Reuters) – Russian internet firm Yandex reported annual revenues above 1 trillion roubles ($11.22 billion) for the first time on Thursday, in a year when the business underwent a significant restructuring.
A Russian consortium of buyers in July finalised a $5.4 billion cash-and-stock deal to acquire Yandex’s Russia-based assets, which had been held through Yandex’s Nasdaq-listed Dutch parent, the largest corporate exit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, albeit at a hefty discount.
Revenue grew 37% year on year to 1.1 trillion roubles in 2024, Yandex said. In 2025, the company, whose Moscow-listed shares rose 1.3% on Thursday, said it expects revenue growth of at least 30%.
“We operate in large and fast-growing markets, in many of which we hold leading positions,” Yandex said. “This opens significant growth prospects for us for many years to come.”
Russia is Yandex’s major market, where it dominates search and advertising. It has offices in several former Soviet countries and operates its ride-hailing service in a handful of African and European countries, but the business split has largely shut off its access to the U.S. market.
Since its foundation in the late 1990s dotcom boom, Yandex has prioritised growth, reinvesting profits in the company’s varied tech services, from e-commerce to cloud, but in July, under new ownership, it proposed paying dividends for the first time.
The company’s management recommended dividends of 80 roubles per share for the full year 2024, after paying interim dividends last year. Full-year adjusted net profit was up 94% year on year to 100.9 billion roubles.
Yandex said the business’ growth in scale would see capital expenditures as a percentage of revenues decrease year-on-year in 2025.
The corporate restructuring saw Yandex’s former Dutch parent, now renamed Nebius Group retain capital-intensive, internationally focused businesses in the cloud, autonomous driving and education technology sectors.
Nebius hopes to become a key player in building the infrastructure underpinning artificial intelligence, with Yandex co-founder and former CEO Arkady Volozh at the helm.
($1 = 89.1000 roubles)
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Rashmi Aich and Tomasz Janowski)
