Russian Internet Market Booms As Access Spreads

How many Internet users are there in Russia? How big are the Russian Internet advertising and e-commerce markets? If you lie awake at night wondering, you’re not alone. Trying to get a handle on this market is not easy, such as are the language and cultural barriers. There’s a lot of interest in IPO’d businesses like Yandex and Mail.ru but not a hell of a lot of info generally.

English and German language blog TheRunet.com has collated a lot of the figures available and come up with a handy run-down on the market, with help from the Russian Association for Electronic Communications and the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The report covers a tonne of information about the “Runet” (the short-hand phrase for Russian internet market). You can download it free here.

What’s clear is that given the total Russian Federation population is around 143 million, there is plenty of growth left to be had when around 58 million people are online in a month. That means Russia is poised to overtake the German market any time soon, if it hasn’t already. That also does not include the Ukraine, which is Russian speaking, but is almost always additionally targeted by Russian Internet companies.

Meanwhile, here are a few quick factoids (figures are in Euros).

The Runet 2011

Monthly Users: 57.8 million

Daily Users: 44.3 million

Advertising

Worth: €1.05 B in 2011

Dispaly ads: €388.5 M display ads

Search ads: €639.1 M

Market growth 57%

eCommerce

Worth: €8 B in 2011

Market growth 30%

Airplane and train tickets alone: €2.16M

_________________________________________________________________


_________________________________________________________________