Sergei Grebennikov, Director of the Russian Association of Electronic Communications (RAEC), said that Yandex has always been in competition with Google in Russia, and now the Russian IT company has become a huge ecosystem with mail, delivery services, taxi calls, its own market and digital content. In an interview with socialbites.ca.
Commenting on the results of a study by the analytical company StatCounter, which showed that the demand for Google products and services in the Russian Federation has decreased, the expert pointed out that Google Chrome is still in a leading position in the market.
“If we are talking about all devices, not just PCs, the share of Chrome is 52.3%, while the share of Yandex Browser is 19.9%. That is why it is too early to say that the decline in the popularity of Google products has already become a trend, ”said Sergey Grebennikov.
At the same time, he added that regardless of these data in general, if we talk about search engines, then in Russia Yandex has always competed with Google, adding that many Russians find it convenient to use Yandex by default, not Google.
The RAEC executive also reminded that some Google products have left Russia or are not very popular among Russian users. The Google Ads platform has suspended work in the Russian Federation. And according to him, Google Maps provided less information than Yandex.Maps even earlier in Russia.
“On YouTube, of course, many vloggers and video creators continue to post videos on this platform, and viewers continue to watch. But more and more unique content is being published on Russian video hosting sites,” Grebennikov said.
The specialist believes that the more domestic analogues appear, the more Russians will use them, because they always have to try something new, compare products, etc. arouses curiosity.
“Another question is how successful these sites will be in retaining users. It already depends on convenience, design and many other factors,” Grebennikov concluded.
Recall, earlier, experts from the analytics company StatCounter reported that the demand for Google products and services in the Russian Federation has noticeably decreased during the year.
The company stated that in July, 45% of Russians access the internet from computers via the Google Chrome browser, which is 5 percentage points less than the previous year. Analysts also noticed that around 39% of search Internet traffic in the Russian Federation in mid-summer is through Google; In July 2022, this figure was 48.6%.