Russia's Internet ad market flourishes

MindShare Interaction has calculated that Russia’s Internet advertising market totaled $369 million in 2007, a 97 percent increase on 2006. This year, MindShare forecasts the country’s Internet advertising spending will reach $685 million.

The spend in 2007 was quite evenly split between contextual advertising comprising $210 million (57 percent) and display advertising at $159 million (43 percent).

Russia’s two largest Internet companies, Yandex and Rambler, are forecast to have combined 2007 revenues of $232 million which accounts for 63 percent of the Russian Internet advertising market.

Google has an estimated 3 percent share of Russia’s Internet advertising market, and just 5 percent of its contextual advertising market.

The majority of top advertisers in Russia came from the mobile telecommunications, automaker, technology and consumer goods sectors. Automakers were the biggest spenders with a quarter of total spend.

Tags: advertising spend, internet advertising, Russia