Yandex on the move in Turkish market

Turkish search engine market with mouthwatering potential thanks to tens of millions of young people hungry for technology and innovation is literally dominated by GOOGLE.

However, the American giant is not the only alternative for Turkish internet users any more.

In fact, Russian search engine Yandex has been a future threat for Google as far as this market is concerned as it has teamed up with the strongest media conglomerate, namely DOĞAN Medya in Turkey for a while.

The group also running CNNTURK television broadcasting operation in Turkey has been taking every opportunity to promote Yandex on its TV channels and other openings. The group has even signed cooperation agreements with big football clubs to make their fans loyal users and likewise. Yandex’s share has risen to 3 percent in the last 18 months in Turkish market.

Now we understand Yandex is ready to take another very important step in Turkey on the way to gaining a much bigger share of the search engine market; The company has decided to expand its presence in this country with new projects including the foundation of an engineering academy in Istanbul and is testing new systems. It plans to employ 50 engineers from Russia and 100 engineers from Turkey who will work together to develop advanced technology products and services for the search engine company.

Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ, Yandex Turkey chairman has said; “We have provided a service like a local search engine. We are launching the Yandex Search Academy project. We will cooperate with firms and universities in Turkey,”. The chairman added that they would make this investment to help Turkey to become an innovation center in the region, saying that they aimed to offer products and services developed at this academy to platforms in the world.

We understand that Yandex is planning to launch its latest project “Islands”, a platform that aims to assist to create an environment for an online fast search primarily in Turkish market. It is reported the Yandex team is near the end of the testing phase of said project and the company would like to cooperate with turkish firms in order to develop the platform.

Though the Russian company may not be imposing a big threat for Google today, the future may bring a much different picture provided they have the support of Doğan Medya group and keep trying to the best of their capacity – like is the case currently.

09.07.2013
Editor, BTT