Mobile marketing world is changing rapidly, and even more rapidly in a growing market like Russia. Just a few months ago in my post about Russian mobile marketing I mentioned that Opera was the most popular mobile browser in the market. Well, it is still the case today, but will Opera manage to keep its leading position by the end of the year?

According to StatCounter data, it is unlikely. Opera has been rapidly losing market share in Russia during the past 2 years, while Android browser and Safari have been steadily growing.

Although the statistics from StatCounter are usually somewhat differ from traditionally reliable Russian sources like LiveInternet, I believe this graph is a very good illustration of market trends. Opera Mini is mainly used on Symbian-powered phones, the amount of which is shrinking year over year. On the other hand, market of smartphones in Russia is growing about 30% per quarter [in Russian] according to MTS (one of the largest mobile operators in Russia). In Q4 of 2012 alone there were 4.3 million smartphones sold in Russia, the majority of which were Android devices.

Anna

Anna is a blogger and online marketing professional specializing in SEO and SEM for Russian search engines. To see more of Anna's posts, follow her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

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Historically, I always found difficult locating information about Russian mobile marketing and the mobile market itself. While in the West mobile has been a hot topic since a few years back, the information in Russia was scarce. Last week, however, I found a great fresh report with all sorts of juicy data about Russian mobile Internet, created by WapStart (the largest mobile ad networks in Russia and CIS) and OpenStat (a web analytics system).

The original report is in Russian, but I would like to provide a rather detailed summary of it here on RussianSearchTips, because this information is worth a fortune for anyone looking into mobile marketing in Russia.

Fact 1: The size of Russian mobile internet audience is 34,5 million

In my last posts about Russian mobile Internet (which was about a year ago!), I mentioned that, while lagging behind the West, Russian mobile Internet usage is growing at a rapid pace. The first two month of 2012 it grew by another 2,5%. It looks like by the end of 2012, the number of Russian mobile Internet increased by another 50%.

Fact 2: Apple, Nokia, and Samsung are the leading brands of mobile devices in Russia

While last year Nokia was holding the leading position in the Russian market, in 2012, just like in the rest of Europe, Nokia’s market share in Russia is falling like a brick. While Apple gained 9% market share in one year, Nokia list 21%.

Fact 3: iOS is the leading mobile operating system in Russia

While Android-based devices are taking the leading position in the world, in Russia iOS is a definite leader, according to WapStart:

Fact 4: Opera Mini is the most popular mobile browser in Russia

Opera is the leader of mobile browser market in Russia: different versions of Opera browsers (Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, Opera Tablet) make up for almost 50% of the market. Safari is the second biggest player (31%), followed by Android Browser (17%):

Fact 5: The majority of Russian Android devices run on Gingerbread (2.3) version

Despite being followed by 3 newer versions in the last 2 years, GingerBread is still the most common version of Android OS in Russia:

Fact 6: iOS 5.1.1 is the most common version on Apple devices in Russia

Apple users seem to update the OS on their devices more regularly (or perhaps buy new devices?). The latest iOS 5.1.1 was by far the most common version of the operating system at the time when the report was made. Now, with iOS 6 being released, this picture is probably different, however these stats say something about Apple holders’ behavior.

Fact 7: 40% of all visits from mobile devices are made in Moscow

The capital of Russia is also Russia’s economic hub. Just like with eCommerce, it is also the most developed region for mobile Internet usage. The second largest city Saint Petersburg is not even half of the size of Moscow when it comes to mobile traffic. The rest of Russia together delivers as much mobile traffic as Moscow region alone.

Fact 8: 99% of all mobile browsers used in Russia support cookies

Tracking is always somewhat of an issue when dealing with mobile sites and advertizing. Having a website fully optimized for mobile screens can open up great possibilities for advertizing and analyzing the data, since most of the mobile browsers used in Russia support cookies.

Fact 9: only 14% of all mobile browsers used in Russia support Flash

Just like in the rest of the world, Flash websites are not going to work in the mobile world in Russia. Very small percentage of mobile browsers support Flash.

Fact 10: the highest CTR for mobile ads in Russia is seen on Saturdays and Sundays

The peak of activity on weekends is nothing new to B2C marketers. This is the case in most markets, and Russia is not an exception. Mobile advertizing delivers more traffic on weekends, and the click-through rate increases by 6% – from average 0.2653% to 0.2808%.

Fact 11: Russian mobile audience is most active in the evenings

The graph below shows activity of mobile audience broken down by hour.

The blue bars indicate activity on weekends, the white bars – activity on weekdays.

According to WapStart data, click-through rate of mobile ads significantly increases in the evenings, both on weekdays and weekends.

Fact 12: Russian mobile ads targeting Apple devices have the highest CTR

Generally, the CTR of mobile ads in Russia is averaging between 0.2653% to 0.2808%, but owners of certain devices are more responsive to advertizing than others. Mobile ads targeted towards Apple devices (iPad, iPhone) have by far the highest CTR (0.46%), surprisingly, followed by Motorola and Blackberry (whose market shares, however, are insignificant comparing to the market leaders Apple, Nokia and Samsung).

Fact 13: Clicks from iPad are the most expensive

The most expensive device to target with mobile ads in Russia is Apple’s iPad. On average, a click from an iPad is worth 5.44 Russian Rubles (approximately 17 US Dollar cents / 13 Euro cents). iPhone-targeted traffic is the second most expensive with average CPC of 3.47 Russian Rubles (approximately 11 US Dollar cents / 9 Euro cents).

I believe it is obvious that Russia is catching up with the Western mobile craze: the mobile Internet usage is growing and the advertizing volumes are following the same trend. Although, being just a tiny part of the Russian Internet market today, mobile marketing has a promising future. The latest research by J’son & Partners Consulting predict that Russia’s mobile advertizing market will reach $60.8 m in value by the end of 2012, and grown up to $215.8 m by 2015. The question is, are you in the game?

Anna

Anna is a blogger and online marketing professional specializing in SEO and SEM for Russian search engines. To see more of Anna's posts, follow her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

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Russian search market is living through exciting times. Google is pushing Yandex very hard, and Yandex is pushing back, not only by series of strategic partnerships (Google & Firefox, Yandex & Skype, Yandex & Windows Phone, Yandex & Apple’s iOS 6, you name it), but also by launching new competing products.

In the last 6 months Yandex created 3 new products directly competing with Google’s: Yandex Browser – a challenger to Google’s Chrome, Yandex.Store – an alternative to Google Play, Yandex.Disc – the Russian DropBox (or Google Drive).

Earlier this week the CEO of Yandex Arkady Volozh (on the left in the video below) explicitly told the audience at F.ounders conference in Dublin, that Yandex is also considering creating their own version of Android, or “Android ecosystem”, as he put it:

This move was sort of expected after Yandex acquired SPB software, a leading mobile development company in Russia.

The plan for creating the “ecosystem” includes partnerships with phone manufacturers and mobile providers. It is rumored that 4 partners has already taken off with the Yandex.Store, for example: one of the largest mobile operators in Russia Megafon is to build they own app store, where Yandex will be acting as a white label, and 3 local tablet manufacturers Pocketbook, TeXet and 3Q.

Read more (in English) on http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/10/23/yandex-lining-up-its-own-android-version/.

Anna

Anna is a blogger and online marketing professional specializing in SEO and SEM for Russian search engines. To see more of Anna's posts, follow her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

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About 3,5 weeks ago it became public that Apple chose Yandex Maps over their own maps platform for all Apple devices in Russia (probably a smart decision!). The integration is done via so-called Yandex geosearch API, so Apple Maps are still there, but all the details about local businesses (restaurants, museums, stores, etc.) are taken from Yandex Maps. If a user wants to see more details about the local business he / she is viewing, there is a Yandex button at the bottom of the listing. Tapping the button redirects the user to Yandex Maps app (or to the App Store, if the app is not installed on his / her device).

Yesterday Yandex released the first showing how the integration affected Yandex Maps app download:

The vertical axes shows the change in number of downloads in %;  the horizontal axes displays dates (1-30 of September 2012). The smaller graph on the side shows downloads of Yandex Maps for iPhone vs. Android in September 2011 vs. September 2012 (shown in thousands downloads).

Another interesting data released at the same time, was the distribution of mobile platforms among Yandex Maps users:

Although these numbers can’t be viewed as the exact picture of distributions of mobile platforms in Russia, it definitely reflects the main trends of the market such as growing popularity of Android devices and shrinking numbers of users of Java and Symbian-powered devices, as well as general rapid growth in smartphone penetration.

Anna

Anna is a blogger and online marketing professional specializing in SEO and SEM for Russian search engines. To see more of Anna's posts, follow her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

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Just in the end of last year I wrote about relatively low numbers of mobile Internet users in Russia. Guess what, since then the numbers increased by 2,5% and it keeps growing. Looking at 2011, Internet traffic from mobile devices, actually, doubled.

One interesting fact is that mobile traffic to YouTube in Russia increased by 500% in 2011, which is much higher than the general increase in mobile traffic and much higher then world-wide statistics.

Market of mobile devices and platforms in Russia

Russia has always been a great market for cell phone producers and telecom companies. Like in many other emerging markets, mobile usage, coming from very low levels, has exploded in the last 10 years. The number of mobile phones in Russia doubled in the last 6 years. Today 90% of Russian population own a mobile phone (in comparison, only 56% of households have a landline phone installed).

The most popular mobile phone brands are Nokia and Samsung. Nokias are popular among Moscow inhabitants, while Samsungs – among people with lower income (source: http://digit.ru/technology/20120417/391034739.html – in Russian).

When it comes to platforms used in Russia, the ration looks as follows, according to the latest analysis from Yandex (in Russian):

Smartphones and tablets are becoming very popular, especially in the capitals (Moscow and St. Petersburg), but a lot of people still use old WAP phones for accessing Internet resources (source: http://company.yandex.ru/researches/reports/internet_regions_2012.xml – in Russian):

This, combined with no real possibilities for quality mobile advertising, makes the Russian market quite special. The user base is growing very quickly, but the advertising technology is not yet there. Who will become the “Yandex” of Russian mobile space – Yandex itself, Google ..or? What do you think?

Anna

Anna is a blogger and online marketing professional specializing in SEO and SEM for Russian search engines. To see more of Anna's posts, follow her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

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Russian Internet usage is increasing rapidly, and a large increase there comes from mobile devices. Russia is still behind the Western world in terms of mobile Internet usage, but it is quickly catching up. According to the recent numbers from Mobtop.ru (a Russian directory of mobile sites as well as mobile Internet statistics provider), reports Searchengines.ru, Russian mobile Internet audience increased by 2,5% during the first two months of 2012.

Russian mobile Internet in numbers

The majority of the users of mobile internet are men (67%).

The mobile Internet audience is quite young. Most users are 18 – 34 years old. This age group in Russia is believed to have the highest buying ability.

Interestingly, Nokia holds by far the largest market share in Russia. While in the West Android and iPhone are the most popular operating systems, in Russia they are barely seen as competitors to the market leader. Android shows a very strong growth, due to a large variety of devices in a lower price range than iPhone.

25% of all visits to mobile sites are made via Wi-Fi, the rest – though 3G and WAP.

Anna

Anna is a blogger and online marketing professional specializing in SEO and SEM for Russian search engines. To see more of Anna's posts, follow her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

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Mobile has been a hot topic in the Western Internet marketing circles for the last few years, and although it is still in a very immature state, there is a lot of room to play. ComScore reported that in the US 7% of digital traffic comes from mobile devices, and this percentage will only increase.

Mobile Internet in Russia

In Russia the situation is rather different. TNS Gallup Web-Index in their report showed that only 1% of Russian population uses mobile Internet. This is astonishingly low number! According to the same report:

55% of all mobile Internet users in Russia, and 42% in Moscow, surf with old-school feature phones.

Only 3% of Russians (7% of Moscow’s population) use tablets.

25% of mobile Internet users admitted that the only purpose of connecting to the Internet from their phones is reading/ sending emails.

There are also more optimistic assessments, where mobile web users’ figures reach 15-20 million.

Mobile Advertizing in Russia

These low numbers of Russian mobile Internet users probably explain the lack of platforms for Mobile advertizing. Even Yandex, known for their innovative and insightful nature as a company, does not prioritize mobile just yet. I bet, however, they are looking into that direction, as I’ve seen a number of job listings in Yandex Mobile Portal repeatedly appearing online.

One of the largest mobile operator MTS predicts strong growth in mobile ad spendings during the coming years. According to their “realistic” forecast, the value of Russian mobile advertizing market will reach 2,85 billion Russian rubles (6,62 million Euro) by 2013, which is still not much comparing to 687 billion Euro online spend in 2010.

Mobile Search Advertizing in Russia

Generally search in Russia is dominated by Yandex (65% market share). Currently there is no possibility to target mobile devices with any kind of Yandex ads.

Google provides the possibilities to target mobile devices in Russia, just like everywhere else. I am very doubtful about volumes they can deliver at this point though.

However, as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Yandex recently released search engine for mobile apps. There is no advertizing program there yet, but the rumors say that it might happen already next year.

SMS/ MMS marketing in Russia

While Western world is buzzing about search and in-app ads, the most common form of Russian mobile advertizing is SMS and MMS. All major mobile operators (e.g. MTS, Beeline, TELE2) offer this possibility, with targeting options. Average cost of one SMS varies between 1,5 – 3 RUR (3-7 Euro cents).

In-app advertizing in Russia

In-app advertizing is pretty much non-existent. There are several pioneering companies working in this direction.

To conclude, at the moment mobile marketing in Russia is limited to SMS / MMS campaigns, and will probably not explode as it has in the West for another 2-3 years. Russian market, however, is very big, and mobile marketing spend increases slowly, but steadily. Ilya Segalovich, Yandex CTO, said in one of his recent interviews that Yandex “will have to join the mobile race”. And if Yandex does, mobile will be big.

I believe in early adoption. The ones who begin to focus on Russian mobile marketing today will be much ahead of the others, when the time comes.

Anna

Anna is a blogger and online marketing professional specializing in SEO and SEM for Russian search engines. To see more of Anna's posts, follow her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

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