Yesterday we wrote about the Russian Internet companies possibly setting up long trades and concluded:
Mail.Ru (MAIL LI) and Yandex (YNDX US) could be interesting plays.
Today new data shows that Yandex (YNDX US) is gaining market share in search.
During the week of 13th to 19th August Yandex (YNDX US) gained market-share of 49.35% on android platform vs 49.28% for Google (GOOG US) according to Yandex Radar analytical center. This is the first time ever that Yandex (YNDX) has surpassed Google (GOOG US) within search in Russia.
Russian newspaper Kommersant.ru writes;
This is a landmark moment for the Russian company: for many years smartphones and tablets on Android remained a zone where Google confidently dominated. The growth of Yandex’s share was helped by the launch of Alice’s voice assistant, the appearance of the default search selection window as a result of the agreement with FAS and the pre-installation of the company’s services on new devices, analysts state
As the search business is the most dominant part of Yandex (YNDX US) business, getting larger market share than Google is an important factor. As reference point, this compares to 38.2% (Yandex) and 60.1% (Google) in the last summer week in 2016 and 42.7% (Yandex) and 56% (Google) in the same week in 2017.
Yandex’s market-share gain is a good proxy to assessing how the company will perform financially , and hitting almost 50% is a clear sign there is continued growth. It is vital to make sure investors/traders follow the metrics that matter most for various companies and their share prices. In the case of internet search companies, and here Yandex (YNDX US) in particular, market-share development is key.
It is always good to keep companies on radar that fundamentally keep performing while the stock has been taken a beating.
