UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 20-F

 

Commission file number: 001-35173

YANDEX N.V.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

N/A

(Translation of Registrant’s name in English)

The Netherlands

(Jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)

Schiphol Boulevard 165

Schiphol P7 1118 BG, The Netherlands

(Address of principal executive offices)

Arkady Volozh, Chief Executive Officer

Schiphol Boulevard 165

Schiphol 1118 BG, The Netherlands

Telephone: +31 20-206-6970

Facsimile: +31 20-446-6372

Email: askIR@yandex-team.ru

(Name, Telephone, E-mail and/or Facsimile number and Address of Company Contact Person)

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act.

 

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act.  None

Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act. Class A Ordinary Shares

Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the issuer’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the Annual Report.(1)

Title of each class		Number of shares outstanding
Class A		285,612,556
Class B		40,692,286

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒  No ☐

If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Yes ☐  No ☒

Note—checking the box above will not relieve any registrant required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 from their obligations under those Sections.

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒  No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ☒  No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards† provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

 

† The term “new or revised financial accounting standard” refers to any update issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to its Accounting Standards Codification after April 5, 2012.

Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepared the financial statements included in this filing:

 

If “Other” has been checked in response to the previous question, indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow. Item 17 ☐  Item 18 ☐

If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐  No ☒

(APPLICABLE ONLY TO ISSUERS INVOLVED IN

BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS DURING THE PAST FIVE YEARS)

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed all documents and reports required to be filed by Sections 12, 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 subsequent to the distribution of securities under a plan confirmed by a court. Yes ☐  No ☐

(1) In addition, we had 3,751,911 Class A shares held in treasury and 4,166,448 Class C shares issued and fully paid as of December 31, 2017. Our Class C shares are issued from time to time solely for technical purposes, to facilitate the conversion of our Class B shares into Class A shares. They are held by a Conversion Foundation managed by members of our Board of Directors. For the limited period of time during which any Class C shares are outstanding, they will be voted in the same proportion as votes cast by holders of our Class A and Class B shares, so as not to influence the outcome of any vote.

 

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

In this Annual Report on Form 20‑F (this “Annual Report”), references to “Yandex,” the “company,” “we,” “us,” or similar terms are to Yandex N.V. and, as the context requires, its wholly owned subsidiaries.

Our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP and are expressed in Russian rubles. In this Annual Report, references to “rubles” or “RUB” are to Russian rubles, and references to “U.S. dollars” or “$” are to United States dollars.

Our fiscal year ends on December 31 of each year. References to any specific fiscal year refer to the year ended December 31 of the calendar year specified.

This Annual Report includes market data reported by Yandex.Radar  (February 2018), the Association of Russian Communication Agencies (AKAR) (March 2018) and the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) (January 2018).

 

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Forward‑Looking Statements

This Annual Report contains forward‑looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Words such as “project,” “believe,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “expect,” “estimate,” “intend,” “should,” “would,” “could,” “will,” “may” or other words that convey judgments about future events or outcomes indicate such forward‑looking statements. Forward‑looking statements in this Annual Report may include statements about:

The forward‑looking statements included in this Annual Report are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Our actual results of operations may differ materially from those stated in or implied by such forward‑looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those described under Part I, Item 3.B. “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report.

We operate in an evolving environment. New risks emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the effect of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward‑looking statements. You should not rely upon forward‑looking statements as predictions of future events. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward‑looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

PART I .

Item 3.  Key Information .

A.

Selected Consolidated Financial and Statistical Data

The selected consolidated statements of income data for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016 and 2017 and the selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2016 and 2017 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report. The selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2013, 2014 and 2015 and consolidated statements of income data for the years ended December 31, 2013 and 2014 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements that are not included in this Annual Report, after adjustment for the retrospective adoption of Accounting Standard Updates 2015‑03 and 2015‑17.

Ruble amounts have been translated into U.S. dollars at a rate of RUB 57.6002 to $1.00, the official exchange rate quoted as of December 31, 2017 by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Such U.S. dollar amounts are not necessarily indicative of the amounts of U.S. dollars that could actually have been purchased upon exchange of Russian rubles at the dates indicated, and have been provided solely for the convenience of the reader. On March 21, 2018, the exchange rate was RUB 57.7033 to $1.00. See “Risk Factors—Emerging markets, such as Russia, are generally subject to greater financial, economic, legal and political risks than more developed markets. Such risks may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”

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The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with our “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects” and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report. Our financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These historical financial results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in any future period.

		Year ended December 31,
		2013		2014		2015		2016		2017
		RUB		RUB		RUB		RUB		RUB		$
		(in millions, except share and per share data)
Consolidated statements of income data:
Revenues:		39,502		50,767		59,792		75,925		94,054		1,632.9
Operating costs and expenses:
Cost of revenues(1)		10,606		14,336		16,810		19,754		23,937		415.6
Product development(1)		5,827		8,842		13,421		15,832		18,761		325.7
Sales, general and administrative(1)		6,537		7,782		11,601		17,885		27,081		470.2
Depreciation and amortization		3,695		4,484		7,791		9,607		11,239		195.1
Goodwill impairment		—		—		576		—		—		—
Total operating costs and expenses		26,665		35,444		50,199		63,078		81,018		1,406.6
Income from operations		12,837		15,323		9,593		12,847		13,036		226.3
Interest income		1,750		1,947		3,037		2,863		2,909		50.5
Interest expense		(33)		(1,091)		(1,293)		(1,208)		(897)		(15.6)
Other income/(loss), net(2)		2,159		6,296		2,259		(3,395)		(1,466)		(25.4)
Income before income taxes		16,713		22,475		13,596		11,107		13,582		235.8
Provision for income taxes		3,239		5,455		3,917		4,324		4,926		85.5
Net income		13,474		17,020		9,679		6,783		8,656		150.3
Net loss attributable to noncontrolling interests		—		—		—		15		120		2.1
Net income attributable to Yandex N.V.		13,474		17,020		9,679		6,798		8,776		152.4
Net income per Class A and Class B share:
Basic		41.25		53.30		30.39		21.19		27.02		0.47
Diluted		40.27		52.27		29.90		20.84		26.49		0.46
Weighted average number of Class A and Class B shares outstanding:
Basic		326,657,778		319,336,782		318,541,887		320,788,967		324,747,888		324,747,888
Diluted		334,571,212		325,610,277		323,713,437		326,136,949		331,243,961		331,243,961

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		2013		2014		2015		2016		2017
		RUB		RUB		RUB		RUB		RUB		$
Cost of revenues		61		101		168		193		178		3.1
Product development		435		780		1,860		2,238		2,477		43.0
Sales, general and administrative		258		329		690		991		1,538		26.7

 

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		As of December 31,
		2013		2014		2015		2016		2017
		RUB		RUB		RUB		RUB		RUB		$
		(in millions)
Consolidated balance sheet data(1):
Cash and cash equivalents		33,394		17,645		24,238		28,232		42,662		740.7
Term deposits (current and non-current)		15,180		31,526		33,549		31,769		28,045		486.9
Total assets		70,769		94,594		111,818		114,108		130,544		2,266.4
Total current liabilities(2)		6,899		9,791		11,669		14,622		35,622		618.5
Total non-current liabilities(2)		17,273		29,067		30,052		20,894		2,275		39.5
Redeemable noncontrolling interests		—		—		—		1,506		9,821		170.5
Total shareholders’ equity		46,597		55,736		70,097		77,086		82,826		1,437.9

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Exchange Rate Information

Our business is primarily conducted in Russia and almost all of our revenues are denominated in Russian rubles. We have presented our most recent annual results of operations in U.S. dollars for the convenience of the reader. Unless otherwise noted, all conversions from RUB to U.S. dollars and from U.S. dollars to RUB in this Annual Report were made at a rate of RUB 57.6002 to $1.00, the official exchange rate quoted by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation as of December 31, 2017. On March 21, 2018, the exchange rate was RUB  57.7033 to $1.00. Such U.S. dollar amounts are not necessarily indicative of the amounts of U.S. dollars that could actually have been purchased upon exchange of Russian rubles at the dates indicated.

The following table presents information on the exchange rates between RUB and the U.S. dollar for the periods indicated as quoted by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation:

		RUB per U.S. dollar
Period		Period-end		Average		Low		High
2013		32.73		31.85		33.47		29.93
2014		56.26		38.42		67.79		32.66
2015		72.88		60.96		72.88		49.18
2016		60.66		67.03		83.59		60.27
2017		57.60		58.35		60.75		55.85
September 2017		58.02		57.70		58.55		57.00
October 2017		57.87		57.73		58.32		57.09
November 2017		58.33		58.92		60.25		58.09
December 2017		57.60		58.59		59.29		57.45
January 2018		56.29		56.79		57.60		55.83
February 2018		55.67		56.81		58.17		55.67
March 2018 (through March 21)		57.70		56.94		57.70		56.37

 

See “Risk Factors—Emerging markets, such as Russia, are generally subject to greater financial, economic, legal and political risks than more developed markets. Such risks may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.” for a discussion of the foreign currency exchange rate risks and uncertainties our business faces.

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Investing in our Class A shares involves a high degree of risk. The risks and uncertainties described below and elsewhere in this Annual Report, including in the section headed “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects”, could materially adversely affect our business. These are not the only risks that we face; additional risks and uncertainties of which we are unaware, or that we currently deem immaterial, may also become important factors that affect us. Any of these risks could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In such case, the trading price of our Class A shares could decline.

Risks Related to the Russian Economy

Emerging markets, such as Russia, are generally subject to greater financial, economic, legal and political risks than more developed markets. Such risks may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Emerging markets such as Russia are subject to greater risks than more developed markets, including financial, economic, legal and political risks. Such risks or an increase in the perceived risks associated with investing in emerging economies could dampen foreign investment and adversely affect the economies of the countries in which we operate. For example, the current geopolitical situations in Ukraine and some other regions, as well as volatility in oil prices (to which the Russian economy is particularly sensitive), may continue to have deleterious macroeconomic and other effects on the regions in which we operate, including increased volatility in currency values and a weaker overall business environment. In 2014 and 2015, Russia experienced an economic downturn characterized by substantial depreciation of its currency, sharp fluctuations of interest rates, a decline in disposable income, a steep decline in the value of shares traded on its stock exchanges, a material increase in the inflation rate, and a decline in the gross domestic product. In 2016 and 2017 some of these economic trends have reversed or moderated, with the ruble strengthening, oil prices increasing, inflation rates declining significantly and the rate of decline in gross domestic product moderating. However, economic conditions continue to be unstable and future changes may have negative effect on our business. In addition, international sanctions have been imposed on identified parties and business sectors in Russia in connection with the geopolitical situation in Ukraine, as described below, which may adversely affect us or business conditions in our markets. 

In connection with the current economic situation, in 2017 the Russian ruble appreciated against the US dollar by 5%, after depreciating materially during the course of 2015 and appreciating materially by 20% in 2016. Although our revenues and expenses, including our personnel expenses, are both primarily denominated in Russian rubles we may have to increase our personnel expenses in order to better compete with other companies that denominate their personnel expenses in currencies which appreciate in relation to the Russian ruble. Also, the majority of our rent expenses, including the lease for our Moscow headquarters, are denominated in U.S. dollars, and a major portion of our capital expenditures, primarily for servers and networking equipment, although payable in rubles, is for imported goods and therefore can be materially affected by changes in the value of the ruble. In addition, our expenses related to the development of our business internationally, as well as for acquisitions, are often denominated in other currencies, including U.S. dollars and Euros. If the Russian ruble were to experience a prolonged and significant decline in value against foreign currencies, we could face material foreign currency exchange exposure, which may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. See “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk”

Should the Russian economy experience a contraction or slower growth in the future, it may adversely affect our results of operations in certain periods. In addition, these conditions may from time to time to depress or encourage volatility in our share price and in equity markets in general.

The adoption and maintenance of international embargo, economic or other sanctions, in particular with respect to the conflict in Ukraine, may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Significant uncertainty exists surrounding the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine. The United States, the European Union and certain other countries have imposed economic sanctions on certain Russian government officials, private individuals and Russian companies, as well as “sectoral” sanctions affecting specified types of transactions with named participants in certain industries, including named Russian financial institutions, and sanctions that prohibit most

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commercial activities of U.S. and EU persons in Crimea and Sevastopol. In the course of 2017 these sanctions were successively prolonged and extended. There is significant uncertainty regarding the extent or timing of any potential further economic or trade sanctions, or the ultimate outcome of the Ukrainian crisis. Political and economic sanctions may affect the ability or willingness of our international customers to operate in Russia, which could negatively impact our revenue and profitability. Sanctions could also impede our ability to effectively manage our legal entities and operations in and outside of Russia. We are domiciled in the Netherlands, while our wholly owned principal operating subsidiary is organized under the laws of the Russian Federation, and several of our other subsidiaries are incorporated in other countries that have imposed economic sanctions on the Russian Federation. Although neither our parent company nor our principal operating subsidiary or other subsidiaries are targets of U.S. or EU sanctions, our business has been adversely affected from time to time by the impact of sanctions on the broader economy in Russia. In addition, Yandex.Money, our joint venture with Sberbank, is subject to U.S. sectoral sanctions.

Since May 2017, Yandex LLC and Yandex.Ukraine LLC, both subsidiaries of Yandex N.V., have been subject to sanctions in Ukraine, which have blocked Ukrainian users from accessing our services and websites. Sanctions have been imposed for three years with the possibility of extension and ban all trade operations and require blocking of all assets, including bank accounts. The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) also conducted searches at Yandex offices in Kiev and Odessa. Such actions led to the shutdown of Yandex’s commercial operations in Ukraine. 

In January 2018, pursuant to the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act of 2017, the U.S. administration presented the U.S. Congress with a report on senior Russian political figures, “oligarchs” and “parastatal” entities.  Our founder, executive director and substantial shareholder, Arkady Volozh, is one of nearly 100 persons included in one part of the so called “Kremlin List”, on the basis of his reported net worth and Herman Gref, a member of our Board of Directors and the CEO and Chairman of Sberbank, the holder of our priority share, was included on the “List of Senior Political Figures.”  Although we are not aware of any intention on the part of the U.S. government to impose sanctions on Mr. Volozh, Mr. Gref or other persons named on this list, if Mr. Volozh or Mr. Gref were to become a target of sanctions, it could have material adverse effect on our business. 

In December 2017, we entered into a binding agreement with Sberbank to form a joint venture in respect of our Yandex.Market business unit. Although Sberbank and a number of its subsidiaries are subject to “sectoral” sanctions, we believe that the pending joint venture is not within the scope of these prohibitions.  Going forward, however, applicable sanctions could impose limitations on our ability to provide additional financing to this joint venture. 

We could also be subject to a number of potential sanctions-related risks in the future.  First, the sanctions rules, or the authoritative interpretation of current rules by the relevant authorities, could change at any time.  In particular, OFAC (or other regulators) could:

We are not aware of any proposals in this regard, but any such decisions would likely reflect the evolving geopolitical and U.S. domestic climate over time. In addition, the applicable sanctions requirements are interpreted broadly by the relevant authorities. In addition, many U.S. and EU parties typically take a very conservative view of compliance matters, given the ambiguities of some of these rules and the approach taken by the regulators. Some parties, in particular U.S. and EU financial institutions, have adopted internal compliance policies that are more restrictive than are strictly required by the applicable rules and have, for example, declined to engage in any dealings with parties on the sectoral sanctions list (including dealings that are not prohibited by the rules applicable to such parties) or with entities closely affiliated with such entities (even if such affiliated entities are not themselves a target of sanctions). 

Although we act in strict compliance with applicable laws and regulations and adhere to the principles of political neutrality in all countries where we operate, further political, civil or military conflicts in the region may result in a general lack of confidence among international investors in the region’s economic and political stability and in

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Russian investments generally. Along with potential official government sanctions on Russia, U.S. and foreign investors may be pressured to reduce or withdraw their investments in Russia. Such circumstances may result in trading volatility, reduced liquidity and significant declines in the price of listed securities of companies with significant operations in Russia, including our Class A shares.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

We face significant competition from major global and Russian companies, including Google and Mail.ru, which could negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We face strong competition in various aspects of our business from global and Russian companies that provide internet services and content, including search services. Currently, we consider our principal competitors in our core business to be Google and Mail.ru. 

Of the large global internet companies, we consider Google to be our principal competitor in the market for desktop and mobile internet search, and for performance-based advertising, online advertising network revenues, advertising intermediary services, distribution arrangements and other services. According to Yandex Radar, Google’s share of the Russian search market, based on search traffic generated, was 39.6% for the full year 2017 and 37.1% in 2016, compared with our market share of 55.1% in 2017 and 56.0% in 2016. Google conducts extensive online and offline advertising campaigns in Russia. In recent years, Google has aggressively marketed its products and services, including its Chrome browser in which its search engine is the default search function, its mobile application, as well as its maps and navigation products, leading to increased competition.

With Android, its popular mobile platform, Google exerts significant influence over the increasingly important market for mobile and location-based search and advertising. Pursuant to a settlement between FAS and Google reached in April 2017, Google is prohibited from arrangements prohibiting pre-installation of rival applications and is required to provide a choice to users in selecting their default search engine.  Nevertheless, it is difficult to anticipate the long-term effects of such changes on our market shares in Android.  Furthermore, we expect that Google will continue to use its brand recognition and global financial and engineering resources to compete aggressively with us. In addition to Google, we also face competition, albeit less intense, from the Russian and international businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo!

On the domestic side, our principal competitor is Mail.ru Group. Although we power paid search on Mail.ru Group properties and monetize a number of Mail.ru Group properties through our Yandex Advertising Network, we also compete with Mail.ru Group for online advertising budgets, allocated between social networks and search, as well as in food delivery services (through Mail.ru Group’s recent acquisition of Delivery Club and our recent acquisition of FoodFox.)  In addition, Mail.ru Group offers a wide range of internet services, the most popular Russian web mail service, and other services that are comparable to ours. Mail.ru’s search market share was 4.1% and 3.4% in 2016 and 2017, respectively.  

Although we have partnerships with a number of social networking sites and serve ads on some of these sites, we also view them as increasingly significant competitors. In light of their large audiences and the significant amount of information they can access and analyze regarding their users’ needs, interests and habits, we believe that they may be able to offer highly targeted advertising that could create increased competition for us. The popularity of such sites may also reflect a growing shift in the way in which people find information, get answers and buy products, which may create additional competition to attract users.

In addition, our business units, which include Taxi, Classifieds and E-commerce, face significant competition in their respective business areas. 

Our Taxi business, a joint venture with Uber which we completed in February 2018, faces competition from Gett, as well as a variety of other taxi and ride-sharing operators and dispatch services. In addition, although Yandex.Taxi and Uber operate as a joint venture in Russia and neighboring countries, our Taxi business may also compete with Uber in jurisdictions outside the scope of our joint venture territory.

Our Classifieds business faces competition from a range of online and offline classified services, including Avito, CIAN (in real estate), and Drom.ru (in automobile sales); and our E-commerce business faces competition from online

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retailers and marketplaces, including AliExpress and Avito, as well as offline retailers.

We cannot guarantee that we will be able to continue to compete effectively with current and future companies that may have greater ability to attract and retain users, greater name recognition, more personnel and greater financial and other resources. If our competitors are successful in providing similar or better search results or other services compared with those we offer, we could experience a significant decline in user traffic or other business. Any such decline could negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The competition to capture market share on mobile devices is intense, and if we are not successful in achieving substantial reach among users and monetizing search and other services on mobile devices, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.  

Users are increasingly accessing the internet through mobile and other devices rather than desktop and laptop personal computers, including through smartphones, wearable devices, and handheld computers such as tablets, as well as through video game consoles and television set-top devices. Such devices have different characteristics than desktop and laptop personal computers (including screen size, operating system, user interface and use patterns). Tailoring our products and services to such devices requires particular expertise and the expenditure of significant resources. The versions of our products and services developed for these devices, including the advertising solutions we offer, may be less attractive to users, advertisers, manufacturers or distributors of devices than those offered by our competitors or than our desktop offerings. The percentage of our total search traffic that was generated from mobile devices increased from approximately 31% in the fourth quarter of 2016 to approximately 39% in the fourth quarter of 2017, while the percentage of our search revenues generated from mobile devices increased from approximately 25% to approximately 31% between those periods.

Each manufacturer or distributor of mobile or other devices may establish unique technical standards for its devices, and as a result our products and services may not work or be viewable on these devices. Some manufacturers may also elect not to include our products on their devices, or may be prohibited from doing so pursuant to their agreements with other parties. Although Google is prohibited from arrangements prohibiting pre-installation of rival applications and is required to provide a choice to users in selecting their default search engine, it is difficult to anticipate the long-term effects of such changes on our market shares in Android.  In addition, consumers are increasingly accessing content directly via applications, or “apps”, tailored to particular mobile devices or in closed social media platforms, which could affect our share of the search market over time. As new devices and platforms are continually being released, it is difficult to predict the challenges we may encounter in adapting our products and services and developing competitive new products and services. See also “—As the internet evolves, an increasing amount of online content may be held in closed social networks, mobile apps or stored in proprietary document formats, which may limit the effectiveness of our search technology, which could adversely affect our brand, business, financial condition and results of operations.”

We expect to continue to devote significant resources to the creation, support and maintenance of mobile products and services. If we are unable to attract and retain a substantial number of device manufacturers, distributors and users to our products and services, or if we are slow to develop products and technologies that are more compatible with such devices and platforms, we will fail to capture the opportunities available as consumers and advertisers transition to a dynamic, multi-screen environment. Furthermore, given the importance of distribution and application pre-installation arrangements with the most popular device manufacturers to the successful operation of our business, failure to reach such arrangements may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We expect the rate of growth of our revenues to be lower in the future and we may experience downward pressure on our operating margin.

We expect that our advertising revenue growth rate will decline over time as a result of a number of factors, including continuing macroeconomic challenges in Russia, challenges in maintaining our growth rate as our revenues increase to higher levels, increasing competition, changes in the nature of queries, the evolution of the overall online advertising market and the declining rate of growth in the number of internet users in Russia as overall internet penetration increases. A decline in our advertising revenue growth rate may negatively impact the rate of growth of our revenues on a consolidated basis.

Other factors which may cause our operating margin to fluctuate or decline include:

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We generate almost all of our revenues from advertising, which is cyclical and seasonal in nature, and any reduction in spending by or loss of advertisers would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In the past three years, we generated on average more than 95% of our revenues from advertising. Expenditures by advertisers tend to be cyclical, reflecting overall economic conditions and budgeting and buying patterns, and can therefore fluctuate significantly. According to AKAR, the rate of growth in online advertising expenditures was 22% in 2017 compared to the similar period of 2016, up from a growth rate of 21% in 2016 compared with 2015 and a growth rate of 15% in 2015 compared with 2014. Any decreases in online advertising spending due to economic conditions, or otherwise, could materially adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Advertising spending and user traffic also tend to be seasonal, with internet usage, advertising expenditures and traffic historically slowing down during the months, when there are extended Russian public holidays and vacations, and increasing significantly in the fourth quarter of each year. For these reasons, comparing our results of operations on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful, and past results should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Furthermore, our business becomes more diversified, thus seasonal changes may have different effect on various lines of business.

We rely on third party partners for a material portion of our revenues and for expanding our user base via distribution arrangements. Any failure to obtain or maintain such relationships on reasonable terms could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Revenues from advertising on our ad network partner websites represented 25.5% of our online advertising

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revenues in 2017 compared with 27.1% in 2016. We consider our ad partner network to be important for the continued growth of our business. Our agreements with our network partners, other than our agreement to power paid search results on Mail.ru, are generally terminable at any time without cause. Our competitors could offer more favorable terms to our current or potential network partners, including guaranteed minimum revenues or other more advantageous revenue-sharing arrangements, in an effort to take market share away from us. Additionally, some of our partners in the Yandex ad network, such as Mail.ru and Microsoft Bing, compete with us in one or more areas and may terminate their agreements with us in order to develop their own businesses. If our network partners decide to use a competitor’s advertising services, our revenues would decline.

Many of our key network partners operate high-profile websites, and we derive tangible and intangible benefits from this affiliation, such as increased numbers of users, extended brand awareness and greater audience reach for our advertisers. If our agreements with any of these partners are terminated or not renewed and we do not replace those agreements with comparable agreements, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.

The number of paid clicks and amount of revenues that we derive from our partners in the Yandex ad network depends on, among other factors, the quality of their websites and their attractiveness to users and advertisers. Although we screen new applicants, favor websites with high-quality content and stable audiences, and strive to monitor the quality of the network partner websites on an ongoing basis, these websites are operated by independent third parties that we do not control. If our network partners’ websites deteriorate in quality or otherwise fail to provide interesting and relevant content and services to their users, this may result in reduced attractiveness to their users and our advertisers, which may adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

To expand our user base and increase traffic to our sites and mobile applications, we enter into arrangements with leading software companies and device manufacturers for the distribution of our services and technology. In particular, we have agreements, on a co-marketing basis, with certain internet browsers. As new methods for accessing the internet become available, including through new digital platforms and devices, we may need to enter into new or amended distribution agreements. See also “—The competition to capture market share on mobile devices is intense, and if we are not successful in achieving substantial reach among users and monetizing search and other services on mobile devices, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.”

Our most significant distribution partner in 2017 was Opera, which offers mobile and desktop browsers, and where Yandex is the default search in certain search entry points. Each of our other distribution partners constitutes less than 10% of our total distribution traffic acquisition costs. If we are unable to continue our arrangements with Opera, or maintain existing or enter into comparable arrangements with new distribution partners, particularly for the distribution of our search and other services on mobile devices, this would likely have a negative effect on our search market share over time. In the future, existing and potential distribution partners may not offer or renew distribution arrangements on reasonable terms for us, or at all, which could limit our ability to maintain and expand our user base, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As the Russian internet market matures, our future expansion will increasingly depend on our ability to generate revenues from new businesses, new business models or in other markets. If we do not continue to innovate and provide services that are useful and attractive to our users, we may be unable to retain them and may become less attractive to our advertisers, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As internet usage has spread in Russia, the rate of growth in the number of internet users has been declining. Our success depends on providing search and other services that make using the internet a more useful and enjoyable experience for our users. As search technology continues to develop, our competitors may be able to offer search capabilities that are, or that are seen to be, substantially similar to, or better than, ours. As our core market matures, we will need to provide new services, further exploit non-core business models, such as our Taxi, E-commerce and Classifieds business units, or expand into new geographic markets in order to continue to grow our revenues at previously achieved levels. The cost we incur in these efforts, both in terms of product development expenses and advertising and marketing costs, can be significant.

If we are unable to continue to develop and provide our users with quality, up-to-date services, and to appropriately time the services with market opportunities, or if we are unable to maintain the quality of such services, our user base may not grow, or may decline. Further, if we are unable to attract and retain a substantial share of internet traffic

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generated by mobile and other digital devices, or if we are slow to develop services and technologies that are compatible with such devices, our user base may not grow or may decline.

If our users move to our competitors, we will also become less attractive to advertisers and therefore to Yandex ad network partners. This could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business depends on a strong brand and our ability to license, acquire or create compelling content at reasonable costs. Failure to maintain and enhance our brand and offer compelling content would harm our ability to expand our base of users, advertisers and network partners and would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We believe that the brand identity that we have developed through the strength of our technology, our user focus and, in particular, our ability to deliver compelling content, has significantly contributed to the success of our business. We license much of our content from third parties, such as music, news items, weather reports and TV program schedules. If we are unable to maintain and build relationships with third-party content providers, this would likely result in a weakening of our brand and a loss of user traffic. In addition, we may be required to make substantial payments to third parties from whom we license or acquire such content. An increase in the prices charged to us by third-party content providers would adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, many of our content licenses with third parties are non-exclusive. Accordingly, other websites and other media such as radio or television may be able to offer similar or identical content. This increases the importance of our ability to aggregate compelling content in order to differentiate Yandex from other businesses.

We also believe that maintaining and enhancing the Yandex brand, including through continued significant marketing efforts, is critical to expanding our base of users, advertisers, advertising network partners, and other business partners. As described below, several of our business units do or will operate as joint ventures.  Although we have sought to implement appropriate controls and protections, depending on specific terms of joint venture arrangements we may have more limited ability to ensure that these businesses are operated in a manner that is consistent with the broader Yandex brand.

Additionally, if we or one of our joint venture partners fail to maintain and enhance the Yandex brand, or if we incur excessive expenses in our efforts to do so, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. If other companies make available competitive content, the number of users of our services may not grow as anticipated, or may decline.

Maintaining and enhancing our brand, especially in relation to mobile services, will depend largely on our ability to continue to be a technology leader and a provider of high-quality, reliable services, which we may not continue to do successfully.

Several of our businesses operate through joint ventures with third parties, which involves risks that we do not face with respect to our core business.

Our Yandex.Taxi business now operates as a joint venture with Uber, while our Yandex.Money business operates as a joint venture with Sberbank.  We have also signed a definitive agreement to enter into a joint venture with Sberbank in respect of our Yandex.Market business. Sberbank is the holder of our priority share and Herman Gref, its chief executive officer and chairman, serves as one of our non-executive directors. Our joint venture partners have certain shareholder and contractual rights in respect of the he management of these joint ventures, and therefore we do not have sole control over the management or operations of our joint ventures. The level of control exercisable by us depends on the terms of the contractual agreements, in particular, the allocation of control among, and continued cooperation between, the participants.

We may face financial, reputational and other exposure (including regulatory censure) in the event that any of our partners fail to meet their obligations under the arrangements, encounter financial difficulty, or fail to comply with local or international regulation and standards. A temporary or permanent disruption to these arrangements, such as through significant deterioration in the reputation, financial position or other circumstances of the third party or material failure in controls, could adversely affect our results of operations.

The formation and operation of joint ventures involve significant challenges and risks, including:

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If we fail to manage effectively the growth of our operations, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We have experienced, and continue to experience, growth in our operations, which has placed, and will continue to place, significant demands on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure.

We have carved out certain of our services into separate business units in order to facilitate the growth of those services. Management of these separate business units requires additional administrative effort, which may put strain on our management and other resources. If we do not effectively manage our growth and the operation of our business units, the quality of our services could suffer, which could adversely affect our brand, business, financial condition and results of operations.

As our user and advertiser bases expand, we will need to continue to increase our investment in technology, infrastructure, facilities and other areas of operations, in particular product development, sales and marketing. As a result of such growth, we will also need to continue to improve our operational and financial systems and managerial controls and procedures. We will have to maintain close coordination among our technical, accounting, finance, marketing and sales personnel. If the improvements are not implemented successfully, our ability to manage our growth will be impaired and we may have to make significant additional expenditures, which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We will need to make new arrangements for our Russian headquarters premises before our current lease expires in 2021, which may result in material expenses and distraction of management attention.

 

Our Russian headquarters are currently located in approximately 65,000 square meters of rented property in central Moscow, with leases expiring in 2021. As a consequence, once our lease expires, we will need to make alternative arrangements for our Russian headquarters, which may include negotiating a new lease for our current premises, moving to new leased premises, or purchasing or developing our own premises. If we seek to negotiate a new lease for our current or new premises, we may be unable to secure favorable terms, and may be required to agree to rent denominated in, or linked to, U.S. dollars, which would subject us to foreign exchange risk. If we decide to purchase or develop our own premises, we may incur substantial up-front expenses and may encounter challenges in managing or coordinating a development process outside our area of core competence.

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Our corporate culture has contributed to our success, and if we cannot maintain the focus on teamwork and innovation fostered by this environment, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.

We believe that a critical contributor to our success has been our corporate culture, which values and fosters teamwork and innovation. As our business matures, and we are required to implement more complex organizational management structures, we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture. We have carved-out a number of our services into separate business units, in order in part to maintain the “start-up spirit” and provide greater strategic and operational focus for these units. We operate or will operate several of our business units as joint ventures with other parties. In such situations our efforts in maintaining our corporate culture may not be successful, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In particular, the spin‑off of certain business units or further establishing of joint ventures and partnerships may cause the loss of some of our clients, or disruption in the provision of the services that are being carved out, and may require additional attention from our management.

The loss of any of our key personnel or a failure to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel, may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our success depends in large part upon the continued service of key members of our management team and technical personnel, as well as our continued ability to attract, retain and motivate other highly qualified engineering, programming, technical, sales, customer support, financial and managerial personnel.

Although we attempt to structure employee compensation packages in a manner consistent with the evolving standards of the markets in which we operate and to provide incentives to remain with Yandex, including equity awards under our employee incentive plans, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to retain our key employees. Although we grant additional equity awards to management personnel and other key employees from time to time, employees may be more likely to leave us after their initial award fully vests. Depreciation of the market value of our shares could also make such equity awards less effective in retaining our key employees, especially for options issued above the current trading price. If any member of our senior management team or other key personnel should leave our group, our ability to successfully operate our business and execute our business strategy could be impaired. We may also have to incur significant costs in identifying, hiring, training and retaining replacements for departing employees.

The competition for software engineers and qualified personnel who are familiar with the internet industry in Russia is intense. We may encounter difficulty in hiring and/or retaining highly talented software engineers to develop and maintain our services. There is also significant competition for personnel who are knowledgeable about the accounting and legal requirements related to a NASDAQ listing, and we may encounter particular difficulty in hiring and/or retaining appropriate financial staff needed to enable us to continue to comply with the internal control requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and related regulations.

Any inability to successfully retain key employees and manage our personnel needs may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Growth in our operations internationally may create increased risks that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We have limited experience with operations outside Russia, and in 2017 derived only approximately 7.0% of our revenues from customers outside Russia. Part of our future growth strategy is to expand our operations geographically on an opportunistic basis. Our geographic expansion efforts generally require the expenditure of significant costs in the new geography prior to achieving the market share necessary to support the commercialization of our core services, which allows us to begin generating revenues from our core services in the new geography. Our ability to manage our business and conduct our operations across a broader range of geographies will require considerable management attention and resources and is subject to a number of risks relating to international markets, including the following:

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In addition, compliance with complex and potentially conflicting foreign and Russian laws and regulations that apply to our international operations may increase our cost of doing business and may interfere with our ability to offer, or prevent us from offering, our services in one or more countries. These numerous laws and regulations include import and export requirements, content requirements, trade restrictions, tax laws, economic sanctions, internal and disclosure control rules, data protection, data retention, privacy and filtering requirements, labor relations laws, U.S. laws, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and local laws prohibiting corrupt payments to governmental officials. Violations of these laws and regulations may result in fines; criminal sanctions against us, our officers, or our employees; prohibitions on the conduct of our business; and damage to our reputation. Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with these laws, we cannot assure you that our employees, contractors or agents will not violate our policies. Any such violations may result in prohibitions on our ability to offer our services in one or more countries, and may also materially adversely affect our reputation, our brand, our international expansion efforts, our ability to attract and retain employees, and our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

 Any decline in the internet as a significant advertising platform in the countries in which we operate could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We generate most of our revenues from the sale of online advertising in Russia. Although the use of the internet as a marketing channel in Russia is maturing, the level of overall spending on advertising in Russia remains relatively low compared to that in other developed countries. Broadband penetration rates in Russia are also relatively low compared to those in some other developed countries. The internet competes with traditional advertising media, such as television, print, radio and outdoor advertising. Although advertisers have become more familiar with online advertising in recent years, some of our current and potential customers have limited experience with online advertising, and have not historically devoted a significant portion of their marketing budgets to online marketing and promotion. As a result, they may be less inclined to consider the internet effective in promoting their products and services compared with traditional media.

Any decline in the appeal of the internet generally in Russia or the other countries in which we operate, whether as a result of increasing governmental regulation of the internet, the growth in popularity of other forms of media, a decline in the attractiveness of the internet as an advertising medium or any other factor, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If our security measures are breached, malicious applications interfere with or exploit security flaws in our services, or our services are subject to attacks that degrade or deny the ability of users to access our products and services, our products and services may be perceived as not being secure, users and customers may curtail or stop using our products

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and services, and we may incur significant legal and financial exposure.

Third parties have in the past attempted, and may in the future attempt, to use malicious applications to interfere with our services and may disrupt our ability to connect with our users. Such interference often occurs without disclosure to or consent from users, resulting in a negative experience that users may associate with Yandex. Such an attack could also lead to the destruction or theft of information, potentially including confidential or proprietary information relating to Yandex’s intellectual property, content and users. For example, if a third party were to hack into our network, they could obtain access to our search code. Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems change frequently and often are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. If an actual or perceived breach of our security occurs, the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures could be harmed and we could lose users and customers.

Although we maintain substantial security measures, such measures may also be breached due to employee error, malfeasance, system errors or vulnerabilities, fraudulent actions of outside parties, or otherwise. Such security breaches may expose us to a risk of loss of this information, litigation, remediation costs, increased costs for security measures, loss of revenue, damage to our reputation, and potential liability.

In addition, we offer applications and services that our users download to their devices or that they rely on to store information and transmit information to others over the internet. These services are subject to attack by viruses, worms and other malicious software programs, which could jeopardize the security of information stored in a user’s device or in our computer systems and networks. These applications may be difficult to remove or disable, may reinstall themselves and may circumvent other applications’ efforts to block or remove them. If our efforts to combat these malicious applications are unsuccessful, or if our services have actual or perceived vulnerabilities, our reputation may be harmed, our user traffic could decline, and our communications with certain users could be impaired, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As the internet evolves, an increasing amount of online content may be held in closed social networks, mobile apps or proprietary document formats, which may limit the effectiveness of our search technology, which could adversely affect our brand, business, financial condition and results of operations.

Social networks are important players in the internet market, and have a significant degree of control over the manner and extent to which information on their websites can be accessed through third-party search engines.

In addition, a large amount of information on the internet is provided in proprietary document formats such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. The providers of the software applications used to create these documents could engineer the document format to prevent or interfere with our ability to access the document contents with our search technology. Information can also be stored in other closed systems, such as mobile apps.

If social or other networks or software providers take steps to prevent their content or documents in their formats from being searchable, such content would not be included in our search results even if the content was directly relevant to a search request. These parties may also seek to require us to pay them royalties in exchange for giving us the ability to search content on their sites, in their networks or documents in their format and provide links thereto in our search results. If these parties also compete with us in the search business, they may give their search technology a preferential ability to search their content or documents in their proprietary format. Any of these results could adversely affect our brand, business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be able to prevent others from unauthorized use of our intellectual property rights, which may adversely affect our competitive position, our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on a combination of patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights, as well as nondisclosure agreements, to protect our intellectual property rights. Our patent department is responsible for developing and implementing our group-wide patent protection strategy in selected jurisdictions, and to date we have filed more than 600 patent applications, of which more than 200 have resulted in issued patents. The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in Russia and other markets in which we operate, however, may not be as effective as that in the United States or Western Europe. Also, the efforts we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be sufficient or effective. Any significant infringement of our intellectual property rights could harm our business, our brand and/or our

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ability to compete, all of which could adversely affect our competitive position, our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims, which are costly to defend, could result in significant damage awards, and could limit our ability to provide certain content or use certain technologies in the future.

A number of internet, technology, media and patent-holding companies own or are actively developing patents covering search, indexing, electronic commerce and other internet-related technologies, as well as a variety of online business models and methods. We believe that these parties will continue to take steps to protect these technologies, including, but not limited to, seeking patent protection in certain jurisdictions. As a result, disputes regarding the ownership of technologies and rights associated with online activities are likely to arise in the future. In addition, use of open-source software is often subject to compliance with certain license terms, which we may inadvertently breach.

With respect to any intellectual property rights claim, we may have to pay damages or compensation and/or stop using technology found to be in violation of a third party’s rights. We may have to seek a license for the technology, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all, and may significantly increase our operating expenses. We may be required to develop an alternative non-infringing technology, which may require significant effort, expense and time to develop. If we cannot license or develop technology for any potentially infringing aspects of our business, we may be forced to limit our service offerings and may be unable to compete effectively. We may also incur substantial expenses in defending against third-party infringement claims regardless of the merit of such claims.

We may be held liable for information or content displayed on, retrieved by or linked to our websites and mobile applications, or distributed by our users; or we may be required to block certain content or access to our websites could be restricted; any of which could harm our reputation and business.

The law and enforcement practice relating to the liability of providers of online services for the activities of their users is currently not settled in Russia and certain other countries in which we operate. Claims may be brought against us for defamation, libel, negligence, copyright, patent or trademark infringement, tort (including personal injury), fraud, other unlawful activity or other theories and claims based on the nature and content of information to which we link or that may be posted online via blogs and message boards, generated by our users or delivered or shared through our services, including if appropriate licenses and/or rights holder’s consents have not been obtained. For example, we have previously been involved in litigation regarding alleged copyright infringement in the United States. We are also regularly required to remove content uploaded by users on grounds of alleged copyright infringement, and from time to time we receive requests from individuals who do not want their names or websites to appear in our search results. Third parties may also seek to assert claims against us alleging unfair competition, data misappropriation, violations of privacy rights or failure to maintain the confidentiality of user data. Our defense of any such actions could be costly and involve significant time and attention of our management and other resources. If any of these complaints results in liability to us, the judgment or settlement could potentially be costly, encourage similar lawsuits, and harm our reputation and possibly our business.

The governments of the countries in which we operate are increasingly developing legislation aimed at regulation of the internet, in many places expanding liability and creating new obligations for companies which operate in the internet. For example, in 2017 new draft legislation was introduced which, if adopted, could require us to delist search results linking to websites that have been blocked in Russia for repeated copyright infringements. New legislation and regulations may impose additional new requirements on us and our operations and lead to material legal liability, which can be difficult to foresee or limit.

Additional recent legislation in Russia has introduced a system of information and website blocking measures both to prevent and stop copyright and related rights infringements and to prevent dissemination of illegal information, such as child pornography, content encouraging suicides and drug use, information on minors hurt by illegal actions and extremist information. The regulations generally require a request from the governmental authority to take down the allegedly infringing or illegal information prior to blocking of a particular website. However, in some cases, such as dissemination of extremist information, access to such information can be blocked without notification or prior judicial scrutiny. The categories of illegal information to which access can be restricted may be interpreted broadly or be expanded. In certain cases, even removal of illegal information does not eliminate the risk of website blocking or reinstate access to the blocked website. For example, Russian legislation allows for permanent blocking of websites for repeated violation of copyright and related rights. There is little clarity as to how this measure will be applied in practice. We may be subject to unpredictable blocking measures, injunctions or court decisions that may require us to block or remove content and may

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adversely affect our services and operations. In addition, to ensure compliance with such laws we may be required to commit greater resources, or to limit functionality of our services, which may adversely affect the appeal of our services to our customers.

We rely on the continued availability, development and maintenance of the internet infrastructure in the countries in which we operate, including third-party providers of our principal internet connections and the equipment critical to our internet properties and services. Any errors, failures or disruption in the products and services provided by these third parties may materially adversely affect our brand, business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our future success will depend on the continued availability, development and maintenance of the internet infrastructure globally and particularly in the countries in which we operate. This includes maintenance of a reliable network backbone with the necessary speed, data capacity and security for providing reliable internet services. Any disruption in the network access provided by third parties or any failure by them to handle current or higher future volumes of use may significantly harm our business. We have experienced and expect to continue to experience interruptions and delays in service from time to time. Furthermore, we depend on hardware and software suppliers for prompt delivery, installation and service of servers and other equipment to deliver our services. The internet infrastructure may also be unable to support the demands placed on it by growing numbers of users and time spent online or increased bandwidth requirements. Government regulation may also limit our access to adequate and reliable internet infrastructure. Any outages or delays resulting from inadequate internet infrastructure or due to problems with our third-party providers could reduce the level of internet usage as well as our ability to provide our services to users, advertisers and network partners, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may have difficulty scaling and adapting our existing technology architecture to accommodate increased traffic and technology advances or new requirements of our users and advertisers, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

With some of the most highly visited websites in Russia, we deliver a growing number of services and page views to an increasing number of users. In addition, the services we offer have expanded and changed significantly and are expected to continue to do so in the future to accommodate bandwidth-intensive technologies and means of content delivery, such as interactive multimedia and video. Our future success will depend on our ability to adapt to rapidly changing technologies, to adjust our services to evolving industry standards and to maintain the performance and reliability of our services. Rapid increases in the levels or types of use of our online services could result in delays or interruptions in our services.

As we expand our services, we will need to continue to invest in new technology infrastructure, including data centers. We may have difficulty in expanding our infrastructure to meet any rising demand for our services, including difficulties in obtaining suitable facilities or access to sufficient electricity supplies. A failure to expand our infrastructure could materially and adversely affect our ability to maintain and increase our revenues and profitability and could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Certain technologies could block our ads, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Advertising displayed on our platforms may be interfered with by third parties, which may adversely affect our ability to attract advertisers. For example, third parties have in the past, and may in the future, employ technologies to block the display of ads on webpages. Ad-blocking technology, if used widely and effectively, would reduce the amount of revenue generated by the ads we serve and decrease the confidence of our advertisers and Yandex ad network partners in our advertising technology, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we fail to detect click fraud or other invalid clicks, we may face litigation and may lose the confidence of our advertisers, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are also exposed to the risk of fraudulent and invalid clicks on the ads we serve from a variety of potential sources. Invalid clicks are clicks that we have determined are not intended by the user to access the underlying content, including clicks resulting from click fraud executed by automated scripts of computer programs. We monitor our own websites and those of our partners for click fraud and proactively seek to prevent click fraud and filter out fraudulent or other invalid clicks. To the extent that we are unsuccessful in doing so, we credit our advertisers for clicks that are later

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attributed to click fraud. If we are unable to stop these invalid clicks, these credits to our advertisers may increase. This could negatively affect our profitability, and these invalid clicks could result in legal claims or harm our brand.

Our business depends on the accuracy and reliability of our search results and dependability of our other services. A systems failure, technical interference or human error could prevent us from providing accurate search results or ads or reliably deliver our other services, which could lead to a loss of users and advertisers and damage our reputation and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business depends on our ability to provide accurate and reliable search results, which may be disrupted. For example, because our search technology ranks a webpage’s relevance based in part on the importance of the websites that link to it, people have attempted to link groups of websites together to manipulate search results. If our efforts to combat these and other types of “index spamming” are unsuccessful, our reputation for delivering relevant results could be harmed. This could result in a decline in user traffic, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Although we maintain robust network security measures, our systems are potentially vulnerable to damage or interruption from terrorist attacks, denial-of-service attacks, computer viruses or other cyber-attacks or attempts to harm our system, power losses, telecommunications failures, floods, fires, extreme weather conditions, earthquakes and similar events. Our data centers, which we maintain ourselves, are also potentially subject to break-ins, sabotage and intentional acts of vandalism, and to potential disruptions. The occurrence of a natural disaster or other unanticipated problems at our data centers could result in lengthy interruptions in our service, which could reduce our revenues and profits, and our brand could be damaged if people believe our services are unreliable.

From time to time, we have experienced power outages that have interrupted access to our services and impacted the functioning of our internal systems. Although we maintain back-up generators, these may not operate properly through a major sustained power outage or their fuel supply could be inadequate. Any unscheduled interruption in our services places a burden on our entire organization and would result in an immediate loss of revenue. If we experience frequent or persistent system failures on our websites, our reputation and brand could be permanently harmed. The steps we have taken to increase the reliability and redundancy of our systems are expensive, reduce our operating margin and may be insufficient to reduce the frequency or duration of unscheduled downtime.

Although we test updates before implementation and there were no significant downtime periods in recent years, errors made by our employees in maintaining or expanding our systems may damage our brand and may have a materially adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We acquire complementary businesses, teams and technologies from time to time, and may fail to identify additional suitable targets, acquire them on acceptable terms or successfully integrate them, which may limit our ability to implement our growth strategy. Acquisitions of new businesses may also lead to increased legal risks and other negative consequences, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We regularly acquire other businesses, technologies and teams. The acquisition and integration of new businesses, technologies and people pose significant risks to our existing operations, including:

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The integration of new businesses presents a number of challenges, including differing cultures or management styles, poor financial records or internal controls on the part of the acquired companies, and an inability to establish control over cash flows. Furthermore, even if we are successful in integrating new businesses, expected cost and operating efficiencies may not materialize, the financial benefits from the acquisition may be less than anticipated, and we could be required to record impairment changes in respect of under-performing assets.

Moreover, our growth may suffer if we fail to identify suitable acquisition targets or are outbid by competing bidders. As a NASDAQ-listed company, we are subject to securities laws and regulations that, in certain circumstances, require that we file with the SEC audited historical financial statements for businesses we acquire that exceed certain materiality thresholds. Given financial reporting practices in Russia and other countries in which we operate, such financial statements and documented systems of internal controls over financial reporting are often not readily available or not capable of being audited to the standards required by U.S. securities regulations. As a result, we may be prevented from or delayed in pursuing acquisition opportunities that our competitors and other financial and strategic investors are able to pursue, which may limit our ability to implement our growth strategy.

Failure to maintain effective customer service may result in customer complaints and negative publicity and may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Customer complaints or negative publicity about our services or those offered by us (including services offered by our business units) or one of our joint ventures, or breaches of customers’ privacy or of our security measures, could diminish consumer confidence in and use of our services. Measures we implement to combat risks of fraud and breaches of privacy and security may be viewed as onerous by our customers or those of our joint venture and damage relations with them. Alternately, should breaches of customers’ privacy or of security measures occur, we could be subject to investigations and claims from governmental bodies, as well as from our customers. These measures heighten the need for prompt and accurate customer service to resolve irregularities and disputes. Effective customer service requires significant personnel expense, and such expense, if not managed properly, may impact our profitability or that of our one of our joint ventures. Any inability by us or our joint venture to manage or train our or their customer service representatives properly could compromise our or their ability to handle customer complaints effectively. In case of failure to maintain effective customer service by us or by one of our joint ventures, our reputation may suffer and we may lose our customers’ confidence, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The inherent limitations of the available data regarding internet usage and online advertising may make it difficult to assess our markets and our market position. 

We rely on and refer to information and statistics from various third-party sources, as well as our own internal estimates, regarding internet usage and penetration and the online advertising markets in the countries in which we operate. The information and statistics used in our industry are subject to inherent limitations reflecting the differing metrics and measurement methods utilized and applied by different sources; for example, data derived from computer usage contrasted to that derived from user surveys. In addition, while we believe that the available data and research on the Russian market is of comparable quality to that available in most developed countries, the data for Kazakhstan and Belarus are generally less consistent and reliable due to more limited third-party measurements in those countries.

We may be subject to claims from our current or former employees as well as contractors for copyright, trade secret and patent - related matters, which are costly to defend and which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operation.

The software, databases, algorithms, images, patentable intellectual property, trade secrets and know-how that we use for the operation of our services were generally developed, invented or created by our former or current employees or contractors during the course of their employment with us within the scope of their job functions or under the relevant contractor’s agreement, as the case may be. As a matter of Russian law, we are deemed to have acquired copyright and related rights as well as rights to file patent applications with respect to such products, and have the intellectual property rights required for their further use and disposal subject to compliance with certain requirements set out in the Civil Code of Russia. We believe that we have appropriately followed such requirements, but they are defined in a broad and ambiguous manner and their precise application has never been definitively determined by the Russian courts. Therefore, former or current employees or contractors could either challenge the transfer of intellectual property rights over the products developed by them or with their contribution or claim the right to additional compensation for their works for hire and/or patentable results, in addition to their employment compensation. We may not prevail in any such action and

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any successful claim, although unlikely to be material, could adversely affect our business and results of operation.

Risks Related to Doing Business and Investing in Russia and Other Countries in which We Operate

The legal system in Russia and other countries in which we operate can create an uncertain environment for investment and business activity that could have a material adverse effect on the value of our Class A shares, our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The legal framework supporting a market economy remains under development in Russia and the other countries in which we operate and, as a result, the relevant legal systems can be characterized by:

Any of these factors may result in our being subject to unpredictable fines or requirements, affect our ability to enforce our rights under our contracts or to defend ourselves against claims by others, or result in our being subject to unpredictable requirements, and could have a material adverse effect on our Class A shares and our business, financial condition and results of operations. The fact that we are a high-profile company may heighten this risk. See “—Businesses in Russia have on occasion been subject to actions by public authorities that some have characterized as unpredictable or politically motivated.”

Because the range of the services we provide is increasing and the legal framework governing the operations in our markets is evolving, we may be required to obtain additional licenses, permits or registrations or comply with other requirements, which may be costly or may limit our flexibility to run our business.

As we increase the range of services and diversify our business we may have to apply for additional licenses. Maintenance of granted licenses and obtaining new licenses may require us to spend additional resources. Licensing requirements may also limit our flexibility in running our business. Failure to maintain required licenses may significantly limit our ability to provide new services in respect of which these licenses are required.

Court interpretations and the applicability of Russian legislation and regulations in relation to our business can be ambiguous or contradictory and it is possible that the authorities may determine that we are required to have additional licenses, permits or registrations to provide our services. For example, we could fall within the regulations that require receipt of licenses/permits or compliance with certain mandatory procedures with respect to the provision of telecommunications services, the delivery of “mass media” and the use of encryption technologies by businesses.  Such

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licensing or compliance processes may be time consuming and expensive and we may not be successful in acquiring any newly required licenses. Additionally, if we fail to obtain and maintain required licenses, permits or registrations or comply with certain mandatory procedures, we may face fines, penalties or sanctions.

As the legal framework in Russia continues to evolve, we may be required to take additional actions in order to comply with new legislation.  Although we believe that we are in full compliance with applicable laws, ambiguities in legislation and the wide discretion granted to regulatory authorities may result in us being subject to additional regulatory requirements. Compliance with additional or new regulatory requirements, or new interpretations or applications of existing requirements, may also require us to spend additional resources and limit our flexibility in providing our services.

New legislation under discussion in the Russian government may potentially affect the services we provide.  In particular, there have been proposals regarding the regulation of taxi services, including on-line taxi aggregators. Adoption of new regulation in this area may result in new duties and restrictions on our Taxi business. Recently, the Russian State Duma has also debated whether to impose new duties on the owners of social networks. The owners of social networks could be obligated to delete certain types of information from their websites at request of users. Although we believe that we would not be affected by such legislation, it could be interpreted in such a way that it affects our business. The Russian State Duma is also considering legislation that would regulate aggregators of information about goods and services offerings. If adopted, such proposals could result in the imposition of additional obligations and liability on the providers of such intermediary services and could require us to modify certain of our services, including Yandex.Mail, Yandex.Taxi and Yandex.Market, as well as spend additional resources in order to ensure compliance with new regulations. If we fail to comply with applicable legal requirements, we may face fines, penalties or sanctions.

Applicable legislation imposes restrictions and requirements on us with respect to processing of certain types of personal and other data and data retention which may impose additional obligations on us, limit our flexibility, or harm our reputation with users.

Collection and handling of user data by any entity or person in Russia and other countries may be subject to certain requirements and restrictions. If these requirements and restrictions are amended, interpreted or applied in a manner not consistent with current practice, we could face fines or orders requiring that we change our operating practices, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In Russia, in order to store an individual’s personal data, we must obtain his or her written consent and use encryption and other technical means to protect his or her personal data. We do not collect or perform any operations on our users’ personal data, except when such collection or processing is in accordance with our terms of services and privacy policies which are available on our websites.   

Subject to several exemptions, processors of personal data must notify the appropriate Russian authority. We do not believe that we are required to make this notification.  However, due to the absence of established court practice and official guidelines on the application of the exemptions to notification, we cannot assure you that the regulator may not take a view that we nevertheless have to file a notification or comply with other requirements applicable to processors of personal data. If we are ultimately required to file such a notification or otherwise are determined to be subject to the rules regarding the collection and handling of personal data, we may be required to use special technical facilities and equipment and to adopt extensive internal compliance rules for the protection of personal data, which may adversely affect our ability to flexibly manage our business or make it more costly to do so.

Furthermore, we use cookies and other widespread technologies that assist us in improving the user experience and personalization of our products and services that ultimately benefit both our users and advertisers through behavioral targeting, which makes our advertising more relevant. There is no clarity as to whether our practices are compliant with the requirements of applicable data protection legislation in Russia and abroad, and such laws could be interpreted and applied in a manner that is not consistent with our current data protection practices.

Additionally, in Russia, “organizers of information distribution” are required to notify the relevant Russian authority about the commencement of their operations, and must retain a broad range of data relating to and generated by their users for a period of time, which must be provided to the authorities at their request. Our principal subsidiary operating in Russia has notified the relevant Russian authority that it acts as an organizer of information distribution with respect to some of the services it provides. Organizers of information distribution that use encryption when delivering or processing electronic messages have to provide the security authorities with information necessary for decoding the delivered or

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processed messages. Compliance with these requirements may require significant expenditures by us, including additional data centers, servers and other infrastructure or software development. Data retention may also harm our reputation with users. If we fail to comply with the above requirements, the Russian authorities can block access to our services in Russia.

Under Russian law, companies are also required to store all personal data of Russian users in databases located inside Russia. Compliance with the requirements provided in this legislation may be practically difficult, require significant efforts and resources, could lead to legal liability in other jurisdictions and limit functionality of our services. Compliance with these requirements may also limit our ability to compete with other companies located in other jurisdictions that do not require mandatory local storage of personal data relating to their users. However, any non-compliance with this requirement could lead to legal liability and potentially to restriction of the availability of the service in Russia. For example, in 2016 a Russian court ordered the blocking of access to a popular social networking website for violation of data protection legislation.

Due to the nature of the services we offer and the fact that we have a presence in a number of countries, we may also be subject to data protection laws of other jurisdictions, especially laws regulating the cross-border transfer of personal data, which may require significant compliance efforts and could result in liability for violations in other jurisdictions. As our business grows we may also encounter increased pressure from foreign state authorities with respect to production of information related to users in circumvention of the international legal framework regulating the provision of such information. Any non-compliance with such requests may lead to liability and other adverse consequences.

Further, current law imposes restrictions on the distribution of satellite images of certain areas in Russia and the other countries in which we operate and imposes requirements with respect to the information provided by the traffic monitoring service we offer. If we were found to be in violation of any such restrictions, we may be forced to suspend such services or may potentially be subject to fines or other penalties.

We may be subject to existing or new advertising legislation that could restrict the types and relevance of the ads we serve, which would result in a loss of advertisers and therefore a reduction in our revenues.

Russian law prohibits the sale and advertising of certain products and heavily regulates advertising with respect to certain products and services. Ads for certain products and services, such as financial services, as well as ads aimed at minors and some others, must comply with specific rules and must in certain cases contain required disclaimers.

Further amendments to legislation regulating advertising may impact our ability to provide some of our services or limit the type of advertising we may offer. The application of these laws to parties, such as Yandex, that merely serve or distribute ads and do not market or sell the product or service, however, can be unclear. Pursuant to our terms of service, we require that our advertisers have all required licenses or authorizations. If our advertisers do not comply with these requirements, and these laws were to be interpreted to apply to us, or if our ad-serving system failed to include necessary disclaimers, we may be exposed to administrative fines or other sanctions, and may have to limit the types of advertisers we serve.

The regulatory framework in Russia governing the use of behavioral targeting in online advertising is unclear. If new legislation were to be adopted, or current legislation were to be interpreted, to restrict the use of behavioral targeting in online advertising, our ability to enhance the targeting of our advertising could be significantly limited, which could result in a loss of advertisers or a reduction in the relevance of the ads we serve, which would reduce the number of clicks on the ads and therefore our revenues.

Our need to comply with applicable Russian laws and regulations could hamper our ability to offer services that compete effectively with those of our foreign competitors and may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Many of our global competitors, such as Google and Microsoft, have their principal operations outside of Russia, putting them generally outside of the jurisdiction of Russian courts and government agencies, even though some of them have offices in Russia. Our systems and operations are located principally in Russia. Russian laws and regulations that are applicable to us, but not to our foreign competitors, may impede our ability to develop and offer services that compete effectively on a global scale as well as in Russia with those offered by our foreign-based competitors and generally available worldwide over the internet. Any inability on our part to offer services that are competitive with those offered by our foreign competitors may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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Russian authorities could determine that we hold a dominant position in one or more of our markets, and could impose limitations on our operational flexibility that may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Russian anti-monopoly legislation imposes restrictions on companies that occupy a dominant position in a given market. We believe that the authorities have not to date focused on internet advertising in Russia to any significant extent, although we are aware of public statements by government officials suggesting that the authorities may analyze the business of online social networking. Were the Russian authorities to investigate the internet or online advertising industries, it is possible that they may conclude that, given our market share, we hold a dominant position in one or more of the markets in which we operate. Additionally, from time to time we receive information requests from Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) related to certain of our services. If FAS deems that we hold a dominant position in one or more of the markets in which we operate this could result in limitations on our future acquisitions and a requirement that we pre-approve with the authorities any changes to our standard agreements with advertisers and Yandex ad network partners, as well as any specially negotiated agreements with business partners. In addition, if we were to decline to conclude a contract with a third party or terminate an existing agreement without sufficient substantiation this could, in certain circumstances, be regarded as abuse of a dominant market position.

Any abuse of a dominant market position could lead to administrative penalties and the imposition of fines of up to 15% of our prior year annual revenues in the relevant market. These limitations may reduce our operational and commercial flexibility and responsiveness, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Businesses in countries where we operate have on occasion been subject to actions by public authorities that some have characterized as unpredictable or politically motivated.

Many commercial laws and regulations in the markets where we operate are relatively new and have been subject to limited interpretation. As a result, their application can be unpredictable. In addition, government authorities have a tendency to follow a very formal approach in certain cases, are entrusted with a high degree of discretion and have at times exercised their discretion in ways that may be perceived as selective or unpredictable, and sometimes in a manner that is seen as being influenced by political or commercial considerations. Furthermore, significant uncertainty exists in the relevant markets in light of the broader geopolitical situation, which may result in the adoption or application of regulations based on political considerations.

For instance, in May 2017 Ukraine sanctioned two Yandex subsidiaries and prohibited usage of our services and websites by Ukrainian users. Yandex offices in Kiev and Odessa were subject to searches by the Ukrainian Security Service in connection with alleged breaches of law.

Although we believe that our commitment to content neutrality principles lessens the risk of politically motivated actions against us, we cannot guarantee that we will not be affected by politically motivated actions that could materially adversely affect our operations.

Existing restrictions on foreign ownership may prevent a takeover of our company by a non-Russian party. If the Russian government were to apply existing limitations on foreign ownership to our business, or specifically impose limitations on foreign ownership of internet businesses in Russia, it could materially adversely affect our group and the value of our Class A shares.

Russian law restricts foreign ownership of companies involved in certain strategically important activities in Russia. The relevant activities include activities connected with the use of encryption technologies that are subject to licensing. Currently, the internet and online advertising are not industries specifically covered by this legislation, but in the past there have been amendments under consideration by the Russian State Duma, which, if adopted, would include certain large internet companies within the scope of this law.

We believe that our Yandex.Money joint venture is subject to the above restrictions on foreign ownership because the Yandex.Money business currently holds an encryption license covered by the law. Since the completion of our joint venture in respect of  Yandex.Money in July 2013 following the sale by Yandex to Sberbank of 75% (less one ruble) of the total participation interest in Yandex.Money, we believe that the applicable restrictions in respect of private non-Russian persons no longer apply to Yandex, but that the requirement to obtain prior approval from the Russian Government

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continues to be applicable to non-Russian state or international organizations or entities controlled by a non-Russian state or international organization that would seek to acquire shares of Yandex  or enter into an agreement that would establish direct or indirect control over Yandex and, therefore, trigger application of the law restricting foreign ownership. There is also a risk that some of the rights granted to Yandex N.V. under the joint venture agreement with Sberbank could be interpreted by Russian authorities as establishing control by Yandex over the Yandex.Money business, which would require the Russian Government’s preliminary consent for a broader number of transactions, including by private non-Russian persons. Moreover, because Yandex holds 25% (plus one ruble) in Yandex.Money, there is a risk that a change of control in respect of Yandex would require preliminary consent of the Central Bank of Russia, as Yandex could be considered to indirectly hold more than 10% of the voting power of a non-banking credit organization.

Other aspects of our business may be subject to restrictions on foreign ownership through the interpretation of current legislation in the future or through future legislation and we may be forced to take significant steps to modify our operating or ownership structure which could have a material adverse effect on our operations or the value of our Class A shares.

The Russian banking and financial systems remain less developed than those in some more developed markets, and a banking crisis could place liquidity constraints on our business and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Russia’s banking and other financial systems are less well-developed and regulated than those of some more developed markets, and Russian legislation relating to banks and bank accounts is subject to varying interpretations and inconsistent application. Russian banks generally do not meet international banking standards, and the transparency of the Russian banking sector lags behind international norms. In addition, the United States and European Union have imposed “sectoral” and related sanctions on named Russian banks in connection with developments in Ukraine. See “—Adoption and maintenance of embargo, economic or other sanctions, in particular with respect to the conflict in Ukraine, as well as similar measures against the countries in which we operate, may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”

As a result, the banking sector remains subject to periodic instability. Another banking crisis, or the bankruptcy or insolvency of banks through which we receive or with which we hold funds, may result in the loss of our deposits or adversely affect our ability to complete banking transactions in Russia, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Some of our counterparties provide limited transparency in their operations, which could subject us to greater scrutiny and potential claims from government authorities.

We do business with a number of companies, especially small companies that do not always operate in a fully transparent manner and that may engage in unpredictable or otherwise questionable practices with respect to tax obligations or compliance with other legal requirements. We have been approached by government authorities regarding potential tax claims or other compliance matters in connection with such transactions. For example, in 2016 we received a claim from the Russian tax authority in respect of one of our distribution agreements with a Russian software developer. We have both appealed the tax authority’s claim and paid the claim in full.

As we are a larger and more transparent company with greater resources than such counterparties, governmental authorities may seek to collect taxes and/or penalties from us in relation to such transactions on the basis that we should have had knowledge of or aided such practices even when we did not.

Changes in the tax systems of Russia and other countries in which we operate, as well as unpredictable or unforeseen application of existing rules, may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Russian tax, currency, and customs laws and regulations are subject to varying interpretations and changes, which may be frequently revised and reviewed by the authorities. As a result, our interpretation of such tax legislation may be challenged by the relevant authorities. Russian tax legislation largely follows the OECD approach but may be implemented in a way which is not in line with international practice or our interpretation. Moreover, under the current conditions of weak economic growth and reduced tax revenue, the authorities are taking a more assertive position in their interpretation of the tax legislation and, as a result, it is possible that transactions and activities that have not been challenged in the past may now be questioned by the authorities. High-profile companies such as ours can be particularly vulnerable to such

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assertive positions of the authorities.

Although we believe that our interpretation of relevant legislation is appropriate and is in accordance with existing court practice, if the authorities were successful in enforcing differing interpretations, our tax liability may be greater than the estimated amount that we have expensed to date and paid or accrued on our balance sheet.

Generally, Russian taxpayers are subject to inspection of their activities for a period of three calendar years immediately preceding the year in which an audit is carried out, with tax audits routinely undertaken at least every two years. A tax audit of our principal Russian subsidiary covering 2013 and 2014 was completed in 2016 and the resulting tax claims were fully accrued in our 2016 financial statements.

Taxes payable on dividends from our Russian operating subsidiaries to our parent company might not benefit from relief under the Netherlands‑Russia tax treaty.

In 2017, our principal Russian operating subsidiary distributed limited dividends to our parent company (Yandex N.V.) and applied withholding tax at a 5% rate in reliance on the provisions of the Netherlands‑Russia tax treaty.

Yandex is incorporated in the Netherlands and our principal operating subsidiaries are incorporated in Russia. Our management seeks to ensure that we conduct our affairs in such a manner that our parent company is regarded as the beneficial owner of all its incomes and not regarded as tax resident in any jurisdiction other than the Netherlands and, in particular, is not deemed to be a tax resident of, or to have a permanent establishment in, Russia. Thus, dividends paid from our Russian operating subsidiaries to our parent company should generally be subject to Russian withholding tax at a 5% rate. If our parent company were not treated as a Dutch resident for tax purposes or if it were deemed to have a permanent establishment in Russia, or if the Russian tax authorities were to determine that other conditions for the application of the 5% rate are not met because, for example, if Yandex N.V. is not deemed to be beneficial owner of the dividends received, dividends paid from our Russian operating subsidiaries to our parent company would be subject to Russian withholding tax at the rate of 15%.

Russian tax rules are characterized by significant ambiguities and limited interpretive guidance and are subject to change, and we can provide no assurance that dividend withholding tax relief may not be challenged by the Russian tax authorities based on the grounds mentioned above. Furthermore, Russian tax rules regarding residency and beneficial ownership which were recently introduced may change or their interpretation may evolve, thus triggering changes in taxation of dividends from our Russian subsidiaries to our parent company in the future.

Based on the current state of the law and available interpretations, we believe that Yandex and our material foreign subsidiaries should not be treated as controlled foreign corporations for Russian tax purposes. However, there are risks that any of these rules may be interpreted or applied in a manner that may have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

We may be required to record a significant deferred tax liability if we are unable to reinvest our earnings in Russia.

Our principal Russian operating subsidiary has significant accumulated earnings that have not been distributed to our Dutch parent company. Our current policy is to retain substantially all our earnings at the level of our principal subsidiary for investment in Russia.

We did not provide for dividend withholding taxes on the unremitted earnings of our non‑Dutch subsidiaries for 2012 or earlier years because we considered them to be permanently reinvested outside of the Netherlands. As of December 31, 2017, we had an accrual of RUB 1,324 million ($23.0 million) for dividend withholding tax. If circumstances change and we are unable to reinvest in that subsidiary’s current operations or acquire suitable businesses in Russia, U.S. GAAP would require us to record a deferred tax liability representing the dividend withholding taxes that we would be required to pay if this subsidiary were to pay these unremitted accumulated earnings to our Dutch parent company as a dividend, even if such dividends were not actually declared and paid. As of December 31, 2017, the cumulative amount of unremitted earnings in respect of which dividend withholding taxes have not been provided is RUB 58,795 million ($1,020.7 million). The applicable withholding tax rate is 5% and the amount of the unrecognized deferred tax liability related to these unremitted earnings was RUB 2,940 million ($51.0 million) as of December 31, 2017. We expect the amount of unremitted earnings to grow as our principal Russian operating subsidiary continues to

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generate net income. If we were required to record a deferred tax liability on an amount subsequently made available for distribution it may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

Risks Related to Ownership of our Class A Shares

The price of our Class A shares has been and may continue to be volatile. Market fluctuations specific to Russia or developing markets or to high‑growth technology companies generally may affect the performance of our Class A shares and could expose us to potential securities litigation, which could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.

Macroeconomic and geopolitical events in Russia in recent periods have adversely affected the value of traded securities of companies with significant operations in Russia, including our Class A shares. In addition, the market for technology and other growth companies has generally experienced severe price and volume fluctuations that have often been disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad macroeconomic, geopolitical, market and industry factors may impact the market price of our Class A shares regardless of our actual operating performance.

The trading price of our Class A shares has been and may continue to be volatile and subject to wide fluctuations in price in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include:

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Additionally, volatility or a lack of positive performance in the price of our Class A shares may adversely affect our ability to retain key employees, some of whom have been granted equity awards.

This volatility may affect the price at which holders of Class A shares may sell such shares and the sale of substantial amounts of our Class A shares could adversely affect our trading price.

In the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against these companies. Such litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.

The concentration of voting power with our principal shareholders, including our founders, directors and senior management, limits your ability to influence corporate matters, while a loss of voting control by our principal shareholders could affect the direction of our company.

Our Class B shares have ten votes per share and our Class A shares have one vote per share. As of February 15, 2018, our founder, directors, senior management (and their affiliates) and principal non‑institutional shareholders together own 93.69% of our outstanding Class B shares and 3.60% of our outstanding Class A shares, representing in the aggregate 55.57% of the voting power of our outstanding shares. In particular, our founder, Mr. Volozh, directly or indirectly controls 85.24% of our outstanding Class B shares and 0.14% of our outstanding class A shares representing in aggregate 49.23% of the voting power of our outstanding shares. For the foreseeable future, therefore, our founder, directors, senior management and their affiliates will have significant influence over the management and affairs of our company and over all matters requiring shareholder approval, including the election of directors, the amendment of our articles of association and significant corporate transactions, such as a sale of our company or its assets.

This concentrated control limits your ability to influence decisions on corporate matters. We may take actions that our public shareholders do not view as beneficial or as maximizing value for them. As a result, the market price of our Class A shares may be adversely affected.

At the same time, if our principal shareholders cease to have absolute voting control over Yandex N.V., as a result of conversions of Class B shares or the issuance of a substantial number of Class A shares, this may also present risks for our company and business. In such an event, it may be more difficult for us to obtain shareholder approval for matters that we believe are in the best interest of our business. 

Certain of our directors and shareholders and their affiliates may have interests that are different from, or in addition to, the interests of other Yandex shareholders.

Some of our directors are affiliated with investment funds or financial institutions that have investments in other businesses or entities that currently or may in the future compete with us. These affiliations may require such directors to recuse themselves from consideration of certain transactions or may otherwise create real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest.

Our Board of Directors and our priority shareholder have the right to approve accumulations of stakes in our company or the sale of our principal Russian operating subsidiary, which may prevent or delay change‑of‑control transactions.

Our Board of Directors has the right, acting by simple majority, to approve the accumulation by a party, group of related parties or parties acting in concert of the legal or beneficial ownership of shares representing 25% or more, in

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number or voting power, of our outstanding Class A and Class B shares (taken together). If our board grants its approval of such share accumulation, the matter is then submitted to the holder of our priority share, which has a further right of approval of such accumulation of shares. In addition, any decision by our Board of Directors to transfer all or substantially all of our assets to one or more third parties, including the sale of our principal Russian operating subsidiary, is subject to the prior approval of the priority shareholder.

Any holding, transfer or acquisition by a party, group of related parties or parties acting in concert of the legal or beneficial ownership of Class B shares representing 25% or more, in number or by voting power, of our outstanding Class A and Class B shares (taken together), without the prior approval of our Board of Directors, first, and then the priority shareholder, will be null and void. The acquisition of shares in excess of the thresholds permitted by our articles of association will be subject to certain notification requirements set forth in our articles of association. Failure to comply with those terms would render the transfer of such shares null and void. In addition, the holders of such shares would not be entitled to the dividend or voting rights attached to their excess shares. The rights of our Board of Directors and our priority shareholder to approve accumulations of stakes in our company may prevent or delay change‑of‑control transactions.

Anti‑takeover provisions in our articles of association and the shareholders agreement among our principal shareholders may prevent or delay change‑of‑control transactions.

In addition to the rights of our board and of the priority shareholder to approve the accumulation of stakes of 25% or more, as described above, our multiple class share structure may discourage others from initiating any potential merger, takeover or other change‑of‑control transaction that our public shareholders may view as beneficial. Our articles of association also contain additional provisions that may have the effect of making a takeover of our company more difficult or less attractive, including:

The Dutch public offer rules, which impose substantive and procedural requirements in connection with the attempted takeover of a Dutch public company, only apply in the case of Dutch target companies that have shares listed on a regulated market within the European Union. We have not listed our shares, and do not expect to list our shares, on a regulated market within the European Union, and therefore these rules do not apply to any public offer for our Class A shares.

We rely on NASDAQ Stock Market rules that permit us to comply with applicable Dutch corporate governance practices, rather than the corresponding domestic U.S. corporate governance practices, and therefore your rights as a shareholder differ from the rights you would have as a shareholder of a domestic U.S. issuer.

As a foreign private issuer whose shares are listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, we are permitted in certain cases to follow Dutch corporate governance practices instead of the corresponding requirements of the NASDAQ

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Marketplace Rules. We follow Dutch corporate governance practices with regard to the quorum requirements applicable to meetings of shareholders and the provision of proxy statements for general meetings of shareholders. In accordance with Dutch law and generally accepted business practices, our articles of association do not provide quorum requirements generally applicable to general meetings of shareholders. Although we do provide shareholders with an agenda and other relevant documents for the general meeting of shareholders, Dutch law does not have a regulatory regime for the solicitation of proxies and the solicitation of proxies is not a generally accepted business practice in the Netherlands. Accordingly, our shareholders may not be afforded the same protection as provided under NASDAQ’s corporate governance rules.

We do not comply with all the provisions of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. This may affect your rights as a shareholder.

As a Dutch company we are subject to the Dutch Corporate Governance Code, or DCGC. The DCGC contains both principles and best practice provisions for management boards, supervisory boards, shareholders and general meetings of shareholders, financial reporting, auditors, disclosure, compliance and enforcement standards. The DCGC applies to all Dutch companies listed on a government‑recognized stock exchange, whether in the Netherlands or elsewhere, including the NASDAQ Global Select Market. The principles and best practice provisions apply to the board (in relation to role and composition, conflicts of interest and independence requirements, board committees and remuneration), shareholders and the general meeting of shareholders (for example, regarding anti‑takeover protection and obligations of the company to provide information to its shareholders) and financial reporting (such as external auditor and internal audit requirements). The DCGC requires that companies either “comply or explain” any noncompliance and, in light of our compliance with NASDAQ requirements and as permitted by the DCGC, we have elected not to comply with all of the provisions of the DCGC. This may affect your rights as a shareholder and you may not have the same level of protection as a shareholder in a Dutch company that fully complies with the DCGC.

Because of the secondary listing of our Class A shares on the Moscow Stock Exchange, we are subject to additional disclosure and compliance requirements that may conflict with those imposed by the SEC and NASDAQ, and we may experience trade fluctuations based on arbitrage activities.

In June 2014, we established a secondary listing of our Class A shares on the Moscow Stock Exchange. Pursuant to that listing, we and our insiders must comply with certain disclosure and other obligations that may differ in timing and substance from those applicable to our NASDAQ listing. In addition, many of the obligations imposed by the Moscow Stock Exchange are formalistic in nature, and that exchange has limited experience in the application of its requirements to companies incorporated outside Russia. As a result, we may not be able to comply with all formal obligations in a manner that is consistent with the requirements or interpretations of that exchange.

In addition, this secondary listing may create opportunities for trading arbitrage, particularly in connection with currency fluctuations between the trading in U.S. dollars on NASDAQ and in rubles on the Moscow Stock Exchange, which could impact the trading price of our Class A shares.

Risks for U.S. Holders

We cannot assure you that we will not be classified as a passive foreign investment company for any taxable year, which may result in adverse U.S. federal income tax consequence to U.S. holders.

Based on certain management estimates with respect to our gross income and the average value of our gross assets and on the nature of our business, we believe that we were not a “passive foreign investment company,” or PFIC, for U.S. federal income tax purposes for the 2017 tax year, and do not expect to be a PFIC in the foreseeable future. However, because our PFIC status for any taxable year will depend on the composition of our income and assets and the value of our assets in such year, and because this is a factual determination made annually after the end of each taxable year and there are uncertainties in the application of the rules, there can be no assurance that we will not be considered a PFIC for the current taxable year or any future taxable year. In particular, the value of our assets may be determined in large part by reference to the market price of our Class A shares, which has fluctuated, and may continue to fluctuate, significantly. If we were to be treated as a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S. holder held our Class A shares, certain adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences could apply to the U.S. holder. See “Taxation—Taxation in the United States—Passive foreign investment company considerations.”

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Any U.S. or other foreign judgments you may obtain against us may be difficult to enforce against us in Russia or the Netherlands.

We have only very limited operations in the United States, most of our assets are located in Russia, our company is incorporated in the Netherlands, and most of our directors and senior management are located outside the United States. As a result, it may be difficult to serve process on us or these persons within the United States. Although arbitration awards are generally enforceable in Russia and the Netherlands, and Russian courts may elect to enforce foreign court judgments as a matter of international reciprocity and judicial comity, you should note that judgments obtained in the United States or in other foreign courts, including those with respect to U.S. federal securities law claims, may not be enforceable in Russia or the Netherlands. There is no mutual recognition treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation or the Netherlands, and no Russian federal law or Dutch law provides for the recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments. Therefore, it may be difficult to enforce any U.S. or other foreign court judgment obtained against our company, any of our operating subsidiaries or any of our directors in Russia or the Netherlands.

The rights and responsibilities of our shareholders are governed by Dutch law and differ in some important respects from the rights and responsibilities of shareholders under U.S. law.

Our corporate affairs are governed by our articles of association and by the laws governing companies incorporated in the Netherlands. The responsibilities of members of our Board of Directors under Dutch law are different than under the laws of some U.S. jurisdictions. In the performance of its duties, our Board of Directors is required by Dutch law to consider the interests of Yandex, its shareholders, its employees and other stakeholders and not only those of our shareholders. Also, as a Dutch company, we are not required to solicit proxies or prepare proxy statements for general meetings of shareholders.

In addition, the rights of our shareholders are governed by Dutch law and our articles of association, and differ from the rights of shareholders under U.S. law. For example, Dutch law does not grant appraisal rights to a company’s shareholders who wish to challenge the consideration to be paid upon a merger or consolidation of the company.

Item 4.  Information on the Company .

History and Development of the Company; Organizational Structure.

Our founders began the development of our search technology in 1989, and launched the yandex.ru website in 1997. Our principal Russian operating subsidiary, Yandex LLC, was formed in 2000, as a wholly owned subsidiary of our former Cypriot parent company. In 2007, we undertook a corporate restructuring, as a result of which Yandex N.V. became the parent company of our group. Yandex N.V. is a Dutch public company with limited liability. Its registered office is at Schiphol Boulevard 165, 1118 BG, Schiphol, the Netherlands (tel: +31‑20‑206‑6970). The executive offices of our principal operating subsidiary are located at 16, Leo Tolstoy Street, Moscow 119021, Russian Federation (tel. +7‑495‑739‑7000).

For a discussion of our principal acquisitions and disposals in 2017, see “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Recent Acquisitions”

Business Overview

Our Business

Yandex is one of the largest internet companies in Europe, operating Russia’s most popular search engine and its most visited website. Yandex’s goal is to help consumers and businesses better navigate the online and offline worlds. Since 1997, Yandex has delivered world-class, geographically relevant search and locally tailored experiences on all digital platforms, based on innovative technologies. Additionally, we have developed market-leading on-demand transportation services, navigation products, and other mobile applications for millions of consumers across the globe.

Yandex is a technology company that builds intelligent products and services powered by machine learning. Our products and services are based on complex, unique technologies that are not easily replicated. Benefiting from Russia’s long‑standing educational focus on mathematics and engineering, we have drawn upon the considerable local talent pool to create a leading technology company.

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We derive substantially all of our revenues from online advertising. We enable advertisers to deliver targeted, cost‑effective ads that are relevant to our users’ needs, interests and locations. We serve ads on our own search results and other Yandex webpages, as well as on thousands of third‑party websites that make up our Yandex ad network. Through our ad network, we extend the audience reach of our advertisers and generate revenue for both our network partners and us. We offer a variety of ad formats to our advertisers, including performance-based, brand and video advertising formats across different platforms. Other revenue streams come from our e‑commerce offerings, ride-sharing service, classifieds, and other initiatives, including music subscription and event tickets sales within our Media Services.

Our businesses are organized in the following operating segments:

Our experimental businesses aim to create new business models. Once an experimental business becomes sizable enough, justifies a new business model, and has good prospects for future development, we may decide to break it out from our Experiments and create a separate segment. Unsuccessful experiments may be shut down or reabsorbed by one of our other segments. From January 1, 2018, we separated out Media Services from Experiments to form a new Media Services business unit and will now report its financial results separately.

Search and Portal

We offer a broad range of world-class, locally relevant search and information services that are free to our users and that enable them to find relevant information quickly and easily.

Yandex Search

Our search engine offers almost instantaneous access to the vast range of information available online. We utilize linguistics, mathematics, machine learning and AI to develop proprietary algorithms that efficiently extract, compile, systematize and present relevant information to users. Our organic search results are ranked by computer algorithms based exclusively on relevance, and we clearly segregate organic results from paid results to avoid confusing our users.

Yandex Search generated 55.1% of all search traffic in Russia in 2017 and 56.4% in February 2018, according to Yandex.Radar, a search traffic and browser usage analytics tool based on Yandex.Metrica data. In 2017 our search share on desktop and mobile reached 65.3% and 41.7%, respectively. In February 2018 our search share averaged 67.5%

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on desktop and 44.6% on mobile, respectively, with mobile search share of 46.1% on Android and 38.4% on iOS. The percentage of our total search traffic, generated from mobile devices averaged approximately 39% in Q4 2017 compared with 31% in Q4 2016, while the percentage of our search revenues generated from mobile devices increased to approximately 31% from approximately 25% in these periods.

Geolocation Services

Yandex.Maps. Our Yandex.Maps provide high‑quality, detailed maps of Russia and neighboring countries. We also provide a detailed map of Turkey and a map of the whole world. We offer our users panoramic views, public transportation routes, driving directions with voice controls and turn-by-turn navigation.

We use our technology and licenses to create and edit maps from raw data, including satellite images, GPS coordinates and live user feedback. Yandex.Maps is also available via application programming interfaces, or APIs, which allow developers to embed and use our interactive maps in third‑party websites and applications, as well as to add extra layers of information—for example, to offer a map showing the location of a restaurant or a hotel.

We also offer Yandex.Navigator , our mobile application that provides turn‑by‑turn navigation, incorporates a voice input function, speed limit warnings, parking information, natural guidance features  as reference points along a route, voice notifications for accidents, road works etc. It is one of Yandex’s most popular mobile apps in terms of usage.

Navigator is also one of the essential components of Yandex.Auto , our voice-activated in-car infotainment system, which offers Yandex’s best-in-class mapping and navigation, our music streaming, weather information and other services. We work with car manufacturers on equipping cars with Yandex.Auto. Yandex.Auto is already available in some models of Toyota and Honda on the Russian market.

The Yandex.Transport app provides users with real‑time data on public transport in a number of Russian cities. It also operates in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland; Budapest, Hungary; Sydney and Brisbane, Australia; and Auckland, New Zealand.

Yandex Business Directory provides users with a comprehensive list of businesses, detailed information about them, as well as search option for services and goods.

In February 2018, we launched our Yandex.Drive car-sharing service which offers on-demand access to a fleet of 750 vehicles. Yandex.Drive usage is billed on a per minute basis and Yandex integrates traffic conditions and customer demand to provide dynamic pricing at the time of reservation. The price includes fuel, parking, and insurance.

Our map based apps allow offline businesses to place ads in native formats (adopted for different scenarios on the map). These formats target potential clients of those businesses while they are using Yandex.Maps and/or Navigator.

Personal Services

Yandex.Mail. Yandex.Mail provides users with fast and easy access to their email.

Yandex.Disk is our cloud‑based storage service that allows users to upload, store and share content online. Since late 2017 we have been providing unlimited storage space for the content uploaded through Yandex.Disk mobile app.

Yandex.News is the most visited online news aggregation service in Russia, providing a comprehensive media overview for our users. We aggregate and present local, national and international news. The selection of news is fully automated and editorial-free.

Yandex.Weather

Our Yandex.Weather service offers hyperlocal, real-time weather information based on our proprietary weather forecasting technology, Meteum. Powered by machine learning, it gives accurate forecasts for areas as local as individual neighborhoods across the world.

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Yandex Browser

Our Yandex Browser is the second most popular browser on desktops and the most popular non-native browser on mobile platforms in Russia. Yandex Browser is committed to delivering high-quality user experiences and protecting web audiences. Yandex.Browser’s built-in Antishock technology blocks malicious and fraudulent advertising and its “Protect” technology offers comprehensive protection against the majority of online threats. For example, Yandex.Browser checks all downloaded files for viruses, warning users about dangerous websites, encrypting users’ passwords when using public Wi-Fi networks, and ensuring safe payments. Recently, we have introduced native ad blocking in the Russian version of Yandex Browser to enhance users’ browsing experience by filtering intrusive advertising.

The combined share of desktop and mobile searches processed through Yandex Browser in Russia reached 19.6% in February 2018, according to Yandex.Radar.

Yandex Search App

In 2017 we significantly upgraded our Yandex Search App by integrating Yandex’s must-have services into one app, including Search, Maps, News, Zen, Weather and many others. In October 2017 we enhanced our Search App with Alice, the first conversational voice assistant on the Russian market. In 2017 our Search App was the fastest growing search app on the Russian market. In December 2017 it became the third most downloaded app in Google Play in Russia.

Turbo pages  

We launched Turbo pages in mid-2017. Turbo pages is a new format of displaying content on mobile devices, which loads several times faster than regular web pages and are optimized for smaller screens. Our Turbo pages are easier to implement compared to other similar products globally and offer monetization from Yandex out of the box. Turbo pages are available on Search, Zen and News.

Alice

In October 2017, we launched Alice, the first conversational intelligent assistant for the Russian market. Alice assists users with a wide array of information needs, such as factoid questions, weather forecasts, directions and currency exchange rates. Alice is not limited to predefined scenarios and includes a general chit-chat mode – a unique feature among intelligent assistants that has been enthusiastically embraced by millions of users. It also benefits from the near-human level of speech recognition accuracy (based on the Word Error Rate measurement) provided by the Yandex SpeechKit platform. As of today, Alice integrates many Yandex services such as Search, News, Weather, Music, Maps, and Taxi, and also includes over a dozen games. The external skills platform for Alice is currently in beta, and includes such skills as ordering from Papa John’s Pizza. Alice is available in Russian in the Yandex Search app and Yandex.Browser on iOS and Android, as well as with Yandex Browser on Windows.

Our Monetization and Advertiser Services

We offer a variety of ad formats to our advertisers, including performance-based, brand and video advertising formats.

Performance‑based ads are principally targeted to a particular user query on our search engine result pages, and on search result pages of our partners, as well as to the content of a particular website or webpage being viewed, or to user behavior or characteristics. Such ads are clearly marked as paid advertising and are separate from our organic search results and non-advertising content.

Most of our revenues are generated from performance‑based advertising, on a pay‑per‑click basis, with a smaller portion generated from brand advertising and video advertising, based on the number of impressions delivered. We actively monitor the ads we serve, both automatically and manually, in order to help ensure the relevance of the ads as well as compliance with applicable laws.

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Yandex.Direct

Yandex.Direct is our auction‑based advertising placement platform, which uses auction theory and relies on our distributed infrastructure to process millions of auctions every day. Yandex.Direct lets advertisers cost‑effectively deliver relevant ads targeted at particular search queries or content on Yandex websites or third‑party websites in the Yandex Advertising Network. Advertisers may use our automated tools, often with little or no assistance from us, to create performance‑based ads, bid on keywords that are likely to trigger the display of their ads, and set total spending budgets. Yandex.Direct features an automated, online sign‑up process that enables advertisers to create and quickly launch their advertising campaigns. Advertisers may also work with our sales staff to design and implement more specialized or sophisticated advertising campaigns. Recently we enhanced Yandex.Direct with an opportunity to place display ads right in the system. We also offer a Yandex.Direct mobile app to better facilitate advertisers’ access to our service to manage their advertising campaigns.

Performance‑based ads on our desktop search engine results page (SERP) appear in one of several general categories: top placement, appearing above the organic search results and featuring up to four paid links on desktop and up to three paid links on mobile; and a southern block, which appears either below the organic search results or the right-hand block located to the right of the organic search results, featuring up to nine paid links in total on desktop and up to one paid link on mobile. In late 2017 we started to test the concept of Templates – our new ad placement formats tailored to a search query of a particular user. Templates allow users to dynamically enrich an advertisement with additional elements, such as quick links, contact information, working hours, merchants’ ratings, images and others. Subsequently we announced the change in our search engine results page layout. Instead of our typical ad placement blocks, paid links will be mixed with organic search links, while our algorithms will choose which format is more appropriate and efficient in each particular situation in order to provide a more personalized SERP. The advertisers will bid for the amount of traffic they want to purchase, instead of traditional bidding for a specific ad placement block. As previously, Yandex.Direct will continue to use a Vickrey‑Clarke‑Groves (VCG) auction to serve ads on our SERP.

Yandex Ad Network

Our Yandex Advertising Network partners include search websites, for which we provide search capabilities, as well as contextual network partners, where we serve ads based on user behavior or characteristics or website content. Among our partners are some of the largest Russian websites, including Mail.ru, Rambler, Bing, Avito.ru, Gismeteo.ru and others.

We help third‑party website owners monetize their content while extending the reach of our advertisers. Through the Yandex Advertising Network, our partners can deliver performance‑based ads on their search results pages or websites. Our advertising algorithms use our proprietary MatrixNet technology, which optimizes the click‑through rate on our network through improved click prediction. We screen applicants for the Yandex Advertising Network and favor websites with high‑quality content and stable audiences to offer advertisers high quality traffic.

Yandex’s video advertising network allows users to place full-screen videos, video ads on pages of websites and ads within the video content available on over 200 advertising platforms, including desktop and mobile websites, mobile and Smart TV applications. Yandex’s technologies enable users to provide advertising to the targeted audience and receive the information about its efficiency.

Programmatic advertising

We have developed a range of programmatic advertising products, which utilize real‑time bidding, or RTB, technologies to provide effective solutions to our publisher and advertiser partners. Our RTB ad exchange connects our performance‑based demand‑side platform (DSP) Yandex.Direct, to our display‑based DSP (called AWAPS) as well as to integrated third-party DSPs. Our RTB ad exchange leverages the wealth of targeting data generated by our own Data Management Platform, including Crypta, search and browsing history, etc. The RTB ad exchange is connected to many of our Yandex Advertising Network partners who have chosen to display ads from our RTB ad exchange as well as or in lieu of our regular Yandex.Direct ads. In addition, through the acquisition of ADFOX, we provide a supply‑side platform to our publisher partners. ADFOX is able to mediate in real‑time between programmatic brand ads from AWAPS, performance‑based ads from Yandex.Direct, ads from integrated third party DSPs and the publisher’s own direct sales.

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Mobile Advertising

We offer our advertisers the ability to display ads on mobile versions of Yandex services, including Zen, our Advertising Network partner websites, and in mobile applications. Advertisers are able to set up their mobile bid as a coefficient of their desktop bid.

Analytics tools

Our web analytics system, Yandex.Metrica , has the largest coverage among web analytics platforms in Russia. It is also the second most popular web analytics system tool in the world offering advertisers and website owners tools such as machine-learning based bot traffic detection, referral spam filtering, raw logs export and unsampled data collection and reporting regardless of the traffic volume. It allows advertisers in near real‑time to analyze the “post‑click” behavior of users to evaluate the key efficiency parameters of their advertising campaigns — for example, to analyze the conversion rate, or the cost of attracting a visitor who performs the desired action. Based on these data, our advertising customers are able to choose the most efficient tools and settings for their advertising campaigns.

We also provide users with AppMetrica , a marketing platform for app install attribution, app analytics, and push campaigns, that allows to track all kinds of ad campaigns.

Yandex.Radar is our analytical tool, which provides advertisers, webmasters, analysts, and other internet marketing professionals with accurate statistics on the internet market in different countries. Yandex.Radar is based on Yandex.Metrica aggregated data and provides statistics on search market shares and browser usage, as well as traffic breakdown by operating system and device type.

E‑commerce

Launched in 2000, Yandex.Market is one of the most popular services in Russia, providing product information, price comparisons and consumer generated reviews of products and online retailers. We aggregate price, product and availability information from thousands of active online and “brick and mortar” retailers, and currently feature approximately 150 million offerings in more than 2,500 product categories from approximately 21,000 domestic and international merchants.

Yandex.Market is priced on a cost‑per‑click (CPC) basis, similar to Yandex.Direct and also operates on a take-rate-based model. Starting from August 2017 we allow offline stores, which do not have their own websites, to place the products on Yandex.Market under a take-rate-based model.

In August 2017, Yandex and Sberbank of Russia announced that the companies intend to combine the technological capabilities of Yandex and the infrastructure and technologies of Sberbank to develop a leading e-commerce ecosystem. In December 2017, the two parties entered into a binding agreement to form a joint venture based on the Yandex.Market platform. Yandex.Market will engage in e-commerce, with a core focus on creating a B2C online retail marketplace. We expect the deal to close in the first half of 2018.

In addition, in October 2017, we started testing our fulfillment center operated by a third party partner to provide users with fully-fledged solutions and improve the purchasing experience.

Taxi

Yandex.Taxi is our ride-sharing service, established in 2011. The service benefits from our robust expertise in machine learning and our world-class navigation and mapping technologies, allowing us to increase efficiency and improve fleet utilization. From late 2016, we have been aggressively investing in geographical expansion. In 2017 Yandex.Taxi added 97 cities with 100,000+ population and 38 cities with population of 50,000+. As of December 2017, the service was available in 167 cities with 100,000+ population, and in 56 cities with population of 50,000+ across Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova.

We continue developing our ride-sharing service to provide the best user experience. Our forward dispatch technology allows us to better utilize the fleet, our smart pick-up points allow users to more efficiently allocate travel time and reduce fares, our upfront pricing, which provides fixed pricing for the trip, is also appreciated by users.

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In July 2017 we entered into a landmark transaction between Yandex.Taxi and Uber to combine our ride-sharing businesses in Russia and neighboring countries. This transaction became a testament to the technological strength of Yandex. The potential synergy effects from Yandex’s deep technological expertise and the global ride-sharing expertise of Uber will allow the combined company to become a regional leader on the ride-sharing market, offering better quality service to our riders, drivers and cities. As of December 2017, the combined company operated in 168 cities with 100,000+ population and in 56 cities with population of 50,000+ across Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova.

Having received all necessary regulatory approvals, Yandex.Taxi and Uber completed the combination of their ride-sharing businesses on February 7, 2018. Uber invested $225 million and Yandex invested $100 million in cash in the combined company, the combined business had more than $400 million in cash on hand at closing, with a combined company valuation in excess of $3.8 billion on a post money basis. The combined company is held approximately 59.3% by Yandex, 36.9% by Uber, and 3.8% by employees of the group on a fully diluted basis.

Tigran Khudaverdyan, ex-CEO of Yandex.Taxi, became the CEO of the combined business. The combined company supervisory board consists of four designees of Yandex and three designees of Uber.

After the closing of the transaction, consumers will be able to use both Yandex.Taxi and Uber apps while the driver-side apps will be integrated, leading to shorter passenger wait times, increased driver utilization rates, and higher service reliability.

In late December 2017, Yandex acquired FoodFox, a leading player in food delivery service. In the second quarter of 2018, as part of the transaction between Yandex.Taxi and Uber, UberEATs will also be contributed to the combined company. In 2018 FoodFox and UberEATs will operate under the Yandex.EATs brand. We believe that food delivery has clear synergy with our ride-sharing operations.

Classifieds

Yandex’s Classifieds business unit includes Auto.ru, Yandex.Realty, Yandex.Jobs and Yandex.Travel.

Auto.ru is our classifieds platform for used and new cars, commercial vehicles and spare parts. Our goal is to provide our users with the means to find the exact car they are looking for. We care about the quality of the cars advertised on our platform. Auto.ru runs certification centers for used cars, which allow sellers to have their cars inspected along up to 300 parameters; in 2017 we had a total of 5 certification centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moreover, in Q4 2017 we added to the listings free vehicle history that allows to check all the information on vehicle operation, road accidents received from the government databases and other. In May 2017, Auto.ru launched an aggregator of auto service centers, which allows users to choose an appropriate autoservice for an appointment among 65,000 auto service centers available in Russia. In addition, Auto.ru keeps developing spare parts classifieds, which were launched in 2016.

Auto.ru continues strengthening its position in the markets. According to the third party advertising agency, working with dealerships, in December 2017, Auto.ru generated 71% of all calls from auto classifieds to dealers in Moscow and 60% in St. Petersburg. We continue growing our market share in the regions. In addition to organic growth, in 2017 we strengthened our competitive position through acquisitions, closing a deal with Hearst Shkulev Media, the largest media company in the Urals, for 30 auto classifieds domains in the regions, and signing a deal with 24auto.ru, the leading auto classified in Krasnoyarsk region.

We monetize Auto.ru through advertising, value added services (VAS) and listing fees for dealers and individuals selling more than one car per month.

Yandex.Realty is our real estate classifieds platform for private individuals and realtors. The service provides listings for both the sale and rental of apartments, rooms, houses and vacation homes. In 2015 we added the option to place listings for apartments in newly‑built or under‑construction apartment complexes in several cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and other cities.  

Yandex.Jobs , our service for job seekers, was launched in 2010 and underwent a complete redesign in 2015, with the new version initially launched as a mobile app for Android and iOS. The focus of the new version is on blue

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collar and service industry jobs. Job search is highly simplified and users can call the potential employer directly from the app. The service aggregates vacancies from a number of partners.

Yandex.Travel is our tour aggregator service. Starting from 2018, Yandex.Tarvel became a part of Search and Portal segment.

Experiments

Aside from our core business and our separate business units, we have a number of divisions that we currently consider to be experimental in nature. We believe that some of them have a good chance of transforming into separate business units in the future.

Media Services

Our Media Services provides our users with streaming audio, video and other entertainment data. Media Services includes our entertainment services – Yandex.Music, KinoPoisk, Yandex.Afisha and Yandex.TV Program – with the monthly audience over 50 million people. Combining Yandex’s recommendation technologies along with the professional content, Media Services offers its users various interesting entertainment options. We monetize Media Services through online advertising and transaction revenues, including music subscriptions and event tickets sales. Beginning with Q1 2018, we will report Media Services as a separate segment.

Media Services’s constituents:

Yandex Data Factory

Yandex Data Factory (YDF) is aimed at developing big data analytics solutions for companies in finance, retail, telecom, manufacturing, healthcare and other industries. Our YDF team consists of machine learning and data analytics experts who use data science to improve businesses’ operations, revenues and profitability.

Discovery Products

Yandex Zen is a personal recommendation service. Analyzing what a particular user reads on the internet, Zen selects news, videos, images, blog entries, and other internet postings that may be relevant to the user. The service uses Yandex's global search index and AI technology. Yandex.Zen is available on Yandex Home Page and Yandex search app, in addition to Yandex Browser and Yandex Launcher. In September 2017, we launched a standalone Zen app on Android.

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In May 2017, we allowed publishers to create and distribute content exclusively through Yandex.Zen so they can create their own channels with text, video and advertisements and run experiments with mobile formats directly. Also, we gave publishers an ability to monetize their channels through online advertising and through users’ donations. To enable publishers to enrich their content and help increase user engagement, in October 2017 we launched a new publisher format available on mobile devices called “Narratives”, which is a set of screens combining text, video, images and GIFs that can be swiped through.

In 2017 Zen generated more traffic to third party websites than any social network in Russia. In December 2017 Zen reached 10 million daily active users.

Yandex Launcher is our take on the Android interface, allowing users to adapt their Android phones to fit their style and fill it with interesting content from all over the internet.

Search and Portal in Turkey

Yandex is also available in Turkey, providing users in this country with Yandex’s major products such as search, mail, maps, traffic, weather and browser. The main focus of our Turkish office is providing advertising services to local customers and promoting our core services, mainly search and geo‑informational services, for Turkish users.

Our Technology

Yandex is a technology company that pioneered machine learning, artificial intelligence and neural networks early on. This expertise uniquely positions us in the global technology arena, allows us to innovate in our local markets and to continuously improve our products and services based on complex, unique technologies that are not easily replicated.

Yandex distributed infrastructure

We seek to ensure the speed and reliability of our services regardless of the user’s location by operating our own Content Delivery Network (CDN) of points of presence in major cities throughout Russia and the other countries in which we operate. This network allows us to support reliable 24/7 operations, including server‑based computations, research and development work, and user and advertiser services. We use proprietary computer architecture to link these clusters of servers, as well as proprietary computational software that operates across these distributed servers, including software that enables us to deploy and monitor software across our systems. This allows us to use relatively inexpensive off‑the‑shelf servers as the foundation of our robust and effective systems for redundant, distributed data storage, retrieval and distributed calculations. Geographic distribution of our servers decreases the cost of internet usage for our users, increases the access speed for our services and increases the stability and dependability of our service offerings. This structure provides redundant fail‑safe capacity such that the failure of a single facility would not cause our websites to stop functioning.

Advertisers

Our advertisers include individuals and small, medium and large businesses throughout the countries in which we operate, as well as large multinationals. Small and medium‑size enterprises purchase the bulk of our performance‑based advertising. No particular advertiser accounted for more than 1.2% of our total revenues in 2015, 2016 or 2017.

Sales and Advertiser Support

We have an extensive sales and support infrastructure, with sales offices in a number of cities in Russia, as well as Lucerne, Switzerland; Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA; Istanbul, Turkey; Shanghai, China; and Almaty, Kazakhstan. We attract advertising customers through both online and offline sales channels.

The substantial majority of our advertisers use our automated Yandex.Direct service to establish accounts, create ads, target users and launch and manage their advertising campaigns. We provide email and telephone support for these customers. Our largest advertising clients are served by a dedicated sales team. These companies may request strategic support services, which include a dedicated accounts team, to help them set up and manage their campaigns.

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Our sales team specialists are able to help advertisers with tasks such as selecting relevant keywords, creating effective ads and audience targeting, thus measuring and improving advertisers’ return on investment.

The Yandex ad network follows a similar model. Most of the websites in the network submit their applications through Yandex.Direct’s automated partner interface. Our direct sales force focuses on building relationships with our largest partners to help them get the most out of their relationship with us. We also have relationships with different advertising sales agencies placing online advertising. 

Marketing

We engage in significant marketing efforts directed first and foremost at internet users, as well as advertising agencies, advertisers and webmasters. Our marketing efforts are focused above all on delivering an optimal user experience with every Yandex product and service. We believe that satisfied users are the best and most credible advocates for our services. In order to improve user satisfaction and loyalty and to continue to use our products and services as marketing tools, we constantly experiment with and improve the design, technology and interface of these products and services. Although we believe that word of mouth is the best advertising strategy, we also view advertising campaigns in online and traditional media as an important element of our efforts to promote our brand, as well as key services. We also invest heavily into our separate business units, including E‑commerce, Taxi and Classifieds, to grow customer awareness, increase user base, increase usage in the existing markets and penetrate into other geographies.

Competition

We operate in a market characterized by rapid commercial and technological change, and we face significant competition in many aspects of our business. We currently operate principally in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Turkey. We face competition from global players such as Google and local players such as Mail.ru Group, both of which offer proprietary search and other services.

We consider Google to be our primary competitor. In addition to its search solutions, Google offers online advertising, information and other search services similar to ours, including services similar to Yandex.Direct and other. We expect that Google will continue to use its brand recognition, financial and engineering resources to compete with us. In 2013 we entered into a partnership with Mail.ru Group pursuant to which Mail.ru Group uses the Yandex.Direct advertising system to power paid search results on its properties. Mail.ru Group offers many communication services, including Russia’s most popular webmail, social networking and messenger services. We compete with Mail.ru for advertising budgets that flow to Mail.ru’s social networks.

The following table presents a comparison of Russian search market share, according to Yandex.Radar (a search traffic and browser usage analytics tool based on Yandex.Metrica data), based on search traffic generated:

		2015		2016		2017
Yandex		57.3	%	56.0	%	55.1	%
Google		34.5	%	37.1	%	39.6	%
Mail.ru		5.0	%	4.1	%	3.4	%

We also face competition from the Russian and international websites of Microsoft and other established companies and start‑ups that are developing search and online advertising technologies. We also compete with online advertising networks, such as Google and MyTarget, which direct online advertising on a number of popular Russian websites.

We believe that social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Mail.ru Group’s Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and My World services, will become significant competitors for online ad budgets. These sites derive a growing portion of their revenues from online advertising, and are experimenting with innovative ways of monetizing user traffic. In light of their very large audiences and the significant amount of proprietary information they can access and analyze regarding their users’ needs, interests and habits, we believe that they may be able to offer highly targeted advertising which could create increased competition for us. The popularity of such sites may also reflect a growing shift in the way in which people find information, get answers and buy products, which may result in increased competition for users.

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In certain vertical areas, in particular those in which our business units operate, we compete with niche services, including e‑commerce, video search, online news aggregators and dictionaries, real estate and automobile services, and specialized search apps for mobile devices. Our Yandex.Taxi service competes with Gett as well as a number of regional offline players across Russia. In addition, although Yandex.Taxi and Uber operate as a joint venture in Russia and neighboring countries, our Taxi business may also compete with Uber in jurisdictions outside the scope of our joint venture territory. Our e‑commerce services face competition from a number of local players acting as both merchants and marketplaces, Avito, which acts as a marketplace for merchants and private individuals, Youla, and a number of international players popular with Russian users, especially those from China such as AliExpress. Our Classifieds services compete with Avito in most areas as well as a number of players present in specific industries such as CIAN in real estate and Drom.ru in automobile sales.Our food delivery business Yandex.EATs competes with Delivery Club, owned by Mail.ru.

We also face competition from other search and service providers in establishing relationships with device manufacturers, such as mobile and tablet computer makers, and access providers, such as internet service providers. Such companies have a significant degree of control over the distribution of products and services, including by offering or establishing exclusive arrangements for “default” search features or other services and bundling them with their offerings. Our users typically have direct relationships with these companies, and may be influenced by economic or other factors in deciding which search or other services to use.

Science and Education

Our team of specialists represents many scientific disciplines, including mathematics, data analysis, programming and linguistics. Besides working on products and technologies at Yandex, some of our experts teach, lecture and train students and young specialists.

We also run our own educational programs. The Yandex School of Data Analysis, offering free courses for university graduates and graduate students, has been running since 2007. The school trains specialists in data processing, data analysis and fact extraction in 5 Russian cities and in Minsk, Belarus. The school’s graduates create a global alumni network advancing machine learning in academia and private IT sector. Yandex also has schools for project managers, user interface developers, designers and other specialists in IT.

In 2016 with the support of regional governments and ministries overseeing education and IT, we launched a project to teach programming to school children called Yandex.Lyceum which is now offered in 19 cities in Russia and 2 cities in Kazakhstan.

We value education and are glad to open new educational opportunities supported with our technologies. In June 2017, Yandex partnered with Prosveshcheniye, known as Russia’s largest educational publisher, to develop a digital education platform for Russian schools. The pilot project was launched in schools in 5 regions.

In addition to educational services, Yandex and Coursera, the online education platform, launched several Specializations and Courses written by Yandex’s employees for people who are eager to expand their knowledge in a certain field of IT.

In October 2017, we introduced a new service called Yandex.Atlas, which provides students and their parents with information about the pass rates of Russian universities in previous years. The project is aimed to help children and their parents with choosing an appropriate university in accordance with their requirements and opportunities.

Yandex and the Higher School of Economics run the Faculty of Computer Science for which we created an educational programme. We also partner with other leading research centers and universities, including the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Saint Petersburg State University and the Belarusian State University. We sponsor a number of school contests in computer programming, mathematics and linguistics, and run a programming competition, Yandex.Algorithm, on annual basis challenging competitive coders and advance the machine learning community across the world.

Russia’s largest technology conference, Yet Another Conference, which is organized by Yandex every year, gathers industry experts from all over the world. We also run scientific conferences on machine learning, as well as

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seminars, lectures, workshops and master classes for those who wish to make or have already made a career in the technology industry.

Employees and Workplace Culture

We place a high value on technological innovation and compete aggressively for talent. We strive to hire the best computer scientists and engineers, as well as talented sales, marketing, financial and administrative staff. We seek to create a dynamic, fulfilling work environment with the best features of a “start‑up” atmosphere, encouraging equal participation, creativity, the exchange of ideas and teamwork.

Our total headcount increased from 6,271 at December 31, 2016 to 7,445 at December 31, 2017. As of December 31, 2017, we had 4,290 employees related to the product development cost category, 2,716 employees related to sales, general and administration, and 439 employees related to cost of revenues. 

Intellectual Property

We rely principally on a combination of trademark, copyright, related rights, patent and trade secret laws in Russia and other jurisdictions as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions to protect our proprietary technology and our brand. We enter into confidentiality and patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants and confidentiality agreements with other third parties, and we rigorously control access to our proprietary technology.

Our patent department is responsible for developing and implementing our group‑wide IP protection strategy in selected jurisdictions. We have filed more than 600 patent applications to date, of which more than 200 have resulted in issued patents. We also have internal procedures for invention disclosures, patent filings, patent acquisitions, freedom‑to‑operate analyses and patentability searches.

Yandex is a registered well‑known trademark in Russia for certain services (classes 35 and 38 under the International Classification of Goods and Services) among consumers of such services on the basis of intensive use. Under Russian law, the protection granted to well‑known trademarks is extended to non‑homogeneous goods and services if customers associate specific use of the designation by third parties with the rights holder and the rights holder’s legitimate interests are infringed. Yandex is also a registered trademark in Ukraine, the United States, the European Union and other countries under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol. We have other registered trademarks in Russia. We continue to file applications to register new trademarks and widen the country coverage of our existing trademarks. Most of the software used by our services or distributed by Yandex to our users is either developed by our employees or by independent contractors who transfer all rights to Yandex.

We enter into written license and use arrangements with providers of a significant portion of the content we offer. Our agreements with most of the news content providers in Russia are on “content‑for‑traffic” terms, pursuant to which we obtain access to news content for free in consideration of the user traffic that accesses the content providers’ websites through our search engine. We license or purchase other additional content. We do not knowingly include content on our websites that we do not have the legal right to include.

We do not own the content generated or posted by users on our websites. As with all websites that host user‑generated content, we are potentially liable for any intellectual property infringement committed by the creator of that content. If we receive a complaint from a party that user‑generated content on our websites infringes that party’s copyright or related rights, we examine the content in question. If we are unable to confirm the violation independently, we request a formal letter of complaint from the notifying party. We then contact the party that has posted the content, and give that person two options: either remove the content, or allow us to provide his or her personal details to the notifying party so that that party may defend its rights. In the event of any court decision in the matter, we comply with the decision. If the potentially offending party does not respond, we remove the content.

Facilities

Our principal operating subsidiary currently leases a total of approximately 60,000 square meters in a single location in central Moscow that serves as our group’s headquarters. We also lease additional office space of approximately 14,000 square meters of office space in a business center in central Moscow, which houses some of our

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divisions. We or our operating subsidiaries also lease or own office space in a number of other cities in Russia. We also lease offices in Newburyport, Massachusetts; Istanbul, Turkey; Lucerne, Switzerland; Minsk, Belarus; Berlin, Germany; Schiphol, The Netherlands; Shanghai, China; Almaty, Kazakhstan, and other locations. We operate data centers in Moscow and other regions of Russia, as well as in Finland. We have points of presence in a number of cities in Russia and elsewhere. Taking into account the projected demand for our services, we continuously evaluate the capacity and locations of our data centers to determine the most cost‑effective manner of delivering reliable services to our users.

Government Regulation

We are subject to an extensive and constantly evolving legal framework in Russia and other jurisdictions applicable to the internet business. As explained in more detail below, there are also a significant number of additional laws and regulations currently being debated and considered for adoption in Russia and other countries where we operate which, in the event of adoption, might require us to make substantial adjustments to our business practices. Due to changing interpretations of laws and regulations, we could also be subject to laws and regulations to which we are not currently subject and which could materially affect our operations.  We have not summarized laws and regulations to which we do not believe we are currently subject.

Advertising Regulation

The principal Russian law governing advertising, including online advertising, is the Federal Law No. 38-FZ “On Advertising,” dated March 13, 2006 (as amended) (the “Russian Advertising Law”). The Russian Advertising Law prohibits advertisements for certain regulated products and services without the required certification, licensing or approval. For example, advertisements for products such as pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, food supplements and infant food, financial instruments or securities and financial services as well as incentive sweepstakes and advertisements aimed at minors and some other products and services must comply with specific requirements and must in certain cases be accompanied by certain required disclaimers. Additionally, Russian law contains certain prohibitions regarding the advertising of alcohol, tobacco and medical services. In addition, the distribution of advertisements over the internet (for example, by email) may require the prior express consent of recipients. In some cases, violation of these Russian laws can lead to civil action by third parties who suffer damages, or administrative penalties imposed by FAS. Further amendments to legislation regulating advertising may impact our ability to provide some of our services or limit the type of advertising we may offer.

We seek to comply with all advertising laws and regulations. At the same time, the application of the advertising laws, in particular in relation to products or services requiring certification, licensing or approval, can be ambiguous and inconsistent. The application of these laws in an unanticipated manner, or the failure of our compliance efforts, may expose us to substantial liability as distributors of advertising and may restrict our ability to provide some of our services.Other laws or interpretations of laws, including those of foreign jurisdictions, may also restrict advertising and negatively impact our business. For example, some French courts have interpreted French trademark laws in ways that would limit the ability of competitors to advertise in connection with generic keywords. Adoption of similar interpretations by Russian or other national courts may adversely affect our business. In addition, Russian law does not specifically regulate behavioral targeting in relation to advertising, which is a standard tool widely used in the online business. Any future interpretation of Russian law affecting the regulation of behavioral targeting could have a negative impact on our business.

Intellectual Property Regulation

In principle, the acquisition, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in Russia are addressed in line with international standards. In particular, literary, artistic and scientific works are subject to copyright protection without any registration and enjoy legal protection simply by virtue of being created in an objective form perceivable by third parties.

Mandatory registration with Rospatent is required for “hard IP” such as trademarks and patents (available in Russia for inventions, utility models and industrial designs) in order for the rights holder to acquire exclusive rights. Trademarks registered abroad under the Madrid Agreement and/or Madrid Protocol have the same legal protection in Russia as locally registered trademarks. 

Under Russian law, we have exclusive rights to trade secrets (know-how) only if we have complied with a legal requirement to introduce reasonable measures to maintain confidentiality of our trade secrets, which measures may be

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burdensome and formalistic to implement. As we rely extensively in our operations on the protection afforded to trade secrets, we have implemented a set of measures required by Russian law in order to protect these trade secrets (know-how). However, there is a risk that our measures will be deemed insufficient and, as a result, we will fail to acquire rights to these trade secrets under Russian law.

One of the known problems and risks in Russian business practice relates to acquiring exclusive rights to works for hire and patentable results from employees. As a rule, the exclusive rights to works for hire and patentable results are assigned to the employer if the intellectual property is made during the course of employment.  However, there are often uncertainties and disputes around the scope of such assignments. In case of employment disputes, Russian courts are often inclined to follow an overly formalistic approach and may take a pro-employee position in the event of uncertainty in a dispute of this nature.

Nonetheless, under Russian law, subject to the risks outlined above, we are deemed to have acquired copyrights and rights to file patent applications with respect to works for hire and patentable results created by our employees during the course of their employment with us and within the scope of their job duties, and have the exclusive rights to their further use and disposal subject to compliance with the requirements of the Civil Code of Russia.

Liability of Online Service Providers

Laws relating to the liability of online service providers for the activities of their users and other third parties are still being developed in Russia and certain other countries in which we operate.

Russian law contains provisions aimed at establishing a framework for limitation of liability of online service providers for the information communicated by third parties over such providers’ networks. Substantial ambiguity remains in Russian law around the scope and protection of such limitation of liability.  In particular, there is little clarity on the limitation of liability with respect to types of online service providers other than providers transmitting information and hosting providers (such as those caching data or providing information location tools). Because the law has not been given detailed binding interpretation, our exposure to liability will depend significantly on the interpretation of these provisions by the courts and officials.

The Russian Civil Code also imposes strict liability for infringement of intellectual property rights if such infringement is committed in connection with business activities. It is unclear how these provisions apply to online service providers.

Russian law establishes a system for the blocking of websites on the internet that make available specific categories of illegal information related to child pornography, suicide or drug use as well as other restricted information. Current law also permits the blocking of websites for violation of data protection, copyright and related rights. The procedure for deleting such information is complex and strictly enforced and the failure to follow such procedures leads to the blocking of the applicable website by all Russian internet service providers and telecommunication service operators.

Other legislation is currently in place in Russia that allows blocking of websites that contain extremist information (including containing calls for mass rioting, extremist activity and participation in mass assemblies conducted in violation of established procedure) at the request of certain governmental authorities without prior notification. Only a subsequent post-blocking notification to the relevant website owner or hosting provider is required. The categories of illegal information to which access can be restricted may be interpreted broadly or be expanded by government authorities depending on circumstances. We may find ourselves subject to such blocking if government authorities interpret information provided by our services as violating these rules and we may be unable to prevent this blocking of our services.

Russian law also restricts the circulation of certain identified categories of publicly available and distributed information that may be harmful for minors. In particular, there is a requirement to take administrative and technical measures to prevent dissemination of restricted information. In addition, the circulation of information products must be accompanied by a relevant mark identifying the age restriction category of information.

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This legislation, as well any similar additional regulations, and the interpretation of such legislation and regulations may impose new requirements on us and our operations and lead to material legal liability, which can be difficult to foresee or limit. See “Risk Factors—We may be held liable for information or content displayed on, retrieved by or linked to on our websites and mobile applications, or distributed by our users; or we may be required to block certain content or access to our websites could be restricted; any of which could harm our reputation and business.”  

Laws and Regulations Applicable to Yandex.Money

Our Yandex.Money joint venture with Sberbank is subject to laws and regulations specifically applicable to electronic payments and encrypted information. Under the regulations governing electronic payment systems, payments with digital money fall into the sphere of banking activities and such payments are regarded as a special transaction entered into without the need to open an account. Such transactions, however, have to be performed by a credit organization supervised by the Central Bank of Russia. To comply with this law, our Yandex.Money joint venture established a non-banking credit organization subsidiary, which obtained the required license from the Central Bank of Russia. All necessary contractual obligations of PS Yandex.Money LLC have been transferred to its non-banking credit organization subsidiary.

Under Russian law, a variety of activities related to encryption require a special permit (license) granted by the Federal Security Service (the “FSS”) subject to the applicant’s continued compliance with a number of licensing requirements, including the requirement to use only certified encryption means and equipment and to ensure timely extension of such certification when its terms expire.

Our Yandex.Money joint venture with Sberbank uses encryption algorithms for the protection of transfers performed by its customers and may be required to obtain additional licenses for their use. The requirements for the grant and maintenance of licenses for the use of encryption algorithms are very broad and unclear, leaving the regulator with much discretion in applying and enforcing the applicable laws. See also “Risk Factors—Because the range of the services we provide is increasing and the legal framework governing internet services and e-commerce in our markets is evolving, we may be required to obtain additional licenses, permits or registrations or comply with other requirements, which may be costly or may limit our flexibility to run our business.”

As a holder of an encryption license, Yandex.Money is subject to Russia’s Strategic Companies Law which restricts the acquisition of voting shares or participation interests and establishment of control by foreign legal entities and individuals, as well as states, international organizations and entities controlled by them, with respect to business entities with strategic importance. According to the amendments to this law and to the Foreign Investment Law that came into force in July 2017, Russian citizens who also have any other citizenship as well as Russian companies that are controlled by foreign investors are now also considered to be foreign investors. In addition, the Chairman of the Government Commission on Control over Foreign Investments in the Russian Federation is now granted the right to decide that approval is required with respect to any transaction by any foreign investor with regard to any Russian company   for the purpose of ensuring national defense and state security. Upon receipt of such a decision from the Government Commission, FAS has three days to notify the foreign investor about the need to receive approval for a prospective transaction. Furthermore, the Government Commission may now impose additional obligations on foreign investors outside of the limited list provided in Article 12 of the Strategic Investments Law as a condition of a transaction approval.

While we are currently in compliance with the Strategic Companies Law, the Strategic Companies Law may prevent our Yandex.Money joint venture from pursuing strategic transactions which could further grow the Yandex.Money business.

Mass Media Regulation

Russian law requires certain parties that disseminate news and similar mass communications and information to be registered with the appropriate Russian governmental body, Roscomnadzor, and to comply with restrictions regarding the distributed content. The law currently permits electronic network publications (websites) to register as mass media. As registration under this amendment is voluntary, we elected not to register our online properties as mass media. See “Risk Factors—Because the range of the services we provide is increasing and the legal framework governing internet services and e-commerce in our markets is evolving, we may be required to obtain additional licenses, permits or registrations or comply with other requirements, which may be costly or may limit our flexibility to run our business.”

Since 2016, Russian law imposes a limit on non-Russian ownership and control, direct or indirect, of Russian

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mass media of no more than 20%. Accordingly, if our core business were to be required to register as a mass media, it would have a material impact on the ownership structure of our business and could materially adversely affect the value of our Class A shares. See also “Risk Factors—Existing restrictions on foreign ownership may prevent a takeover of our company by a non-Russian party. If the Russian government were to apply existing limitations on foreign ownership to our business, or specifically impose limitations on foreign ownership of internet businesses in Russia, it could materially adversely affect our group and the value of our Class A shares.”

Privacy and Personal Data Protection Regulation

We are subject to Russian and foreign laws regarding privacy and the protection of our users’ personal data. We publish on our websites our privacy policies and practices concerning the use, processing, storage and disclosure of user data. Any failure by us to comply with our privacy policies as well as Russian or other applicable laws and regulations relating to privacy and the protection of user data may result in proceedings against us by governmental authorities, individuals or other third parties, which may adversely impact our business. In addition, the adoption and interpretation of data protection laws, and their application to internet operations, are often unclear, difficult to predict and are in a constant state of development. Although we believe that we comply with all current requirements, these laws could in the future be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with current practice. For instance, in May 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union established that an operator of a search engine can be obligated to remove from the list of search results links to webpages containing inaccurate or outdated information related to an individual. Russian personal data laws have been amended, granting a similar right to Russian citizens, who from January 2016 have been able to apply for the removal of search results that link to inaccurate or irrelevant information about them. In addition, in May, 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) comes into force in the EU and its provisions may contradict national data privacy regulations in some countries where we operate. In those cases we will have to compare the liability under the GDPR and national laws to decide, with which regulation to comply.

Russian data protection laws provide that an individual must freely consent to the production of her/his personal data. Such consent must be concrete, informed and conscious, and may be provided in any form evidencing the fact that consent has been provided, unless otherwise established by federal law, which requires that it be made in writing, signed by digital electronic signature or evidenced in a similar manner prescribed by laws and regulations.

We, like our peers, seek this consent from our users by asking them to click on a button or select a check-box in appropriate circumstances prior to commencement of the account registration process indicating the user’s consent to our collection, use, storage and processing of personal data. Furthermore, most of our services do not require the creation of an account prior to their use and we collect only limited information in these circumstances. In particular, we place cookies and use other widespread technologies that assist us in improving user experience of our products and services and ultimately benefit both our users and advertisers to the extent that we use a certain part of this collected information for behavioral targeting of advertising. No clear legislative guidelines have been provided addressing whether our practices are compliant with the requirements of the data protection legislation in Russia and abroad. There is a risk that such laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is not consistent with our current data protection practices. Complying with various regulations in this area may cause us to incur additional costs or to change our business practices. Further, any failure by us to protect our users’ privacy and data may result in a decrease of user confidence in our services, and may ultimately result in a loss of users, which would adversely affect our business.

Russian legislation also regulates “organizers of information distribution”. Organizers of information distribution must retain a broad range of data relating to and generated by users for a period of time, and provide such data to security and investigation authorities at their request. Organizers of information distribution that use encryption when delivering or processing electronic messages have to provide the security authorities with information necessary for decoding the delivered or processed messages. If an organizer of information distribution fails to comply with the above requirements, the Russian authorities can prescribe the blocking of access to the services of such organizer of information distribution.

Russian personal data law also requires that companies store all personal data of Russian users only in databases located inside Russia. Although we have data centers located in Russia, this law could limit our flexibility in managing our operations globally. Failure to comply with applicable data protection legislation may lead to the restriction of access to our services. For example, in 2016 a Russian court ordered the blocking of access to a popular social networking website for violation of data protection legislation.

Licenses for the Provision of Communication Services

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Entities that provide certain telecommunication services for a fee are required under Russian law to obtain a “telematics” license from Roscomnadzor. In order to increase our range of services and diversify our business we obtained the telematics licenses necessary for the provision of certain of our new services in Russia. However, we generally do not charge a fee for the online services we provide to our users and therefore, believe that we are not required to hold a telematics license for provision of these services. We do, however, generate revenue from ads directed to our users. As a result, it is possible that a Russian court or government agency may construe our advertising revenue as a fee and determine that we are required to hold a telematics license for such services, which would require us to apply for and comply with the terms of any such license.

Additionally, we may in the future offer user services for a fee, which could require us to comply with the licensing requirements described above.

Antimonopoly Regulation

Russian law grants to FAS as the antimonopoly regulator wide powers and authorities to maintain competition in the market, including approval or monitoring of mergers and acquisitions, establishment of rules of conduct for market players occupying dominant positions, prosecution of any wrongful abuse of a dominant position, and the prevention of cartels and other anti-competitive agreements or practices. The regulator may impose significant  administrative fines (up to 15% of the annual revenue derived in the market where the violation occurred) on market players that abuse their dominant position or otherwise restrict competition, and is entitled to challenge contracts, agreements or transactions that are in violation of the antimonopoly regulation. We may be considered to possess a substantial market share in the online advertising market; however, we are not recognized by the regulator as occupying a dominant position in any market. However, we understand that the regulator from time to time focuses on internet services and could in the future recognize online advertising as a separate market, and could identify dominant players and impose conduct limitations and other restrictions.

In addition, FAS is currently developing the “fifth antimonopoly package” – the amendments to the existing antimonopoly legislation in the sphere of digital markets and IP. The new legislation may have a far-reaching impact on our business, which is difficult to estimate at present time.

Taxation Regulation

Taxation of legal entities and individuals in Russia is regulated primarily by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. The scope and application of the Tax Code is elaborated by numerous regulations and clarifications from the Ministry of Finance of Russia and by the Federal Tax Service, which enforces the tax laws. Russian tax law and procedures are still not fully developed and local divisions of the Federal Tax Service have considerable autonomy in tax law interpretation and often interpret tax rules inconsistently. Also, there is extensive court practice on the construction of the Code’s provisions, which can sometimes be unpredictable or even contradictory. Both the substantive provisions of the Russian tax law and the interpretation and application of those provisions by the Russian tax authorities and by Russian courts may be subject to rapid and unpredictable change. See “Risk Factors—Changes in the tax systems of Russia and other countries in which we operate, as well as unpredictable or unforeseen application of existing rules, may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.” In addition, there is an uncertainty regarding the taxation of our service Yandex.Music. The business activity of this service can be either determined as providing services (which falls under VAT taxation) or licensing (which is exempted from VAT taxation).

Securities Regulation

Our Class A ordinary shares are currently listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market and in June 2014 were admitted to trading on Moscow Exchange; therefore we are required to comply with specific Russian regulation concerning information disclosure, insider trading and certain other requirements as may be applied to foreign issuers in Russia.

Applicability of Other Regulations

Because our services are accessible to Russian-language speakers worldwide and are becoming increasingly available to other users globally, certain foreign jurisdictions, including those in which we have not established a local office, employees or infrastructure, may require us to comply with their local laws. 

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Item 4A.  Unresolved Staff Comments .

None.

Item 5.  Operating and Financial Review and Prospects .

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with the “Selected Consolidated Financial Information” section of this Annual Report and our consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report. In addition to historical information, this discussion contains forward‑looking statements based on our current expectations that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward‑looking statements as a result of various factors, including those set forth in the “Risk Factors” and “Forward‑Looking Statements” sections and elsewhere in this Annual Report.

Overview

We are one of the largest European internet companies and the leading search provider in Russia. Our principal constituencies are:

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Users.  We provide our users with advanced search capabilities and an extensive range of online services that enable them to find relevant, objective information quickly and easily, as well as communicate, connect and shop over the internet.

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Advertisers.  Our online advertising platform allows advertisers to reach a large audience of users in their markets and deliver cost‑effective online advertising. With Yandex.Direct, our auction‑based advertising platform, advertisers can promote their products and services through relevant ads targeted to a particular user query, the content of a website or webpage being viewed, or user behavior or characteristics. Our Yandex.Market service allows merchants to advertise their goods and services either using a traditional CPC advertising model or using a CPA model that charges advertisers only when it delivers a paying customer.

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Yandex ad network partners.  We have relationships with a large number of third‑party websites, which we refer to as the Yandex ad network. In addition to serving ads on our own websites, we also serve ads on our network partners’ websites and share the fees generated by these ads with our partners, providing an important revenue stream for them.

Our yandex.ru website first began generating revenue in 1998. We became profitable in 2003 and have been profitable every year since then.

Advertising revenues accounted for 97.4%, 95.6% and 93.0% of our total revenues in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively. Our advertising revenues consist of fees charged to advertisers for serving online ads on our websites and those of our partners in the Yandex ad network. We place the significant majority of our performance‑based ads through Yandex.Direct and the remainder through Yandex.Market, our e‑commerce gateway service. We sell approximately half of our performance-based ads on a prepaid basis. Our Yandex.Direct advertisers pay us on a cost‑per‑click (CPC) basis, which means that we recognize revenue only when a user clicks on one of our advertisers’ ads. Our brand advertising is generally sold on a cost‑per‑thousand (CPM) impressions basis. For these ads, we recognize as revenue the fees charged to advertisers when their ads are displayed. Our Yandex.Market service is priced on a CPC basis, similar to Yandex.Direct. Yandex.Market also operates on a take-rate-based model. In September 2016 we started to actively switch certain goods’ categories in several regions to the take-rate-based model as we consider it beneficial to both merchants and consumers.

We recognize our advertising revenues net of value added tax (currently 18.0% in Russia) and sales commissions and bonuses. Although the major part of our revenues is generated by direct sales to our advertisers, a significant portion of our advertising sales are sold through media agencies. We recognize revenues from those advertising sales net of the commissions and bonuses paid to these agencies.

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We benefit from a large and diverse base of advertisers. Our advertisers include individuals and small, medium and large enterprises across Russia and the other countries in which we operate, as well as large multinational corporations. No individual advertiser accounted for more than 1.2% of our total revenues in 2015, 2016 or 2017. On a geographical basis, we generated more than 91% of our total revenues in each of 2015, 2016 and 2017 from advertisers and other customers with billing addresses in Russia, including the Russian offices of large multinational advertisers.

We serve ads both on our own websites and on the websites of our partners in the Yandex ad network. For performance‑based ads served on the websites of our partners in the Yandex ad network, we recognize as revenue the fees paid to us by advertisers each time a user clicks on one of their performance‑based ads or, for those advertisers paying for brand ads on a CPM basis, as their ads are displayed. We pay our partners in the Yandex ad network fees for serving our advertisers’ ads on their websites. These fees are primarily based on revenue‑sharing arrangements. As such, the fees paid to our partners in the Yandex ad network are calculated as a percentage of the revenues we earn by serving ads on partners’ websites. We account for the fees we pay to our partners in the Yandex ad network as traffic acquisition costs, a component of cost of revenues. Since we launched our Yandex ad network in 2006, these costs annually have, in aggregate, amounted to more than one‑half of the revenues we have earned from serving ads on the Yandex ad network and we expect them to continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Yandex ad network partners do not pay us any fees associated with our serving ads on their websites.

Our agreements with our partners in the Yandex ad network generally have an indefinite term but may be terminated by either party at will with no termination fees. Agreements with larger partners in the Yandex ad network are individually negotiated and vary in duration but typically renew automatically. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, none of our ad network partners accounted for more than 10% of our total revenues. In 2017, Mail.ru Group continued to be our most significant ad network partner.

We believe the most significant factors that influence our ability to continue to increase our advertising revenues include the following:

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Segments

Starting 2015, we revised our organizational structure, separating several focus areas into product lines and geographies. As a result, our businesses are now organized in the following operating segments:

Key Trends Impacting Our Results of Operations

Although the Russian economy stabilized to some extent in 2017, our results of operations have been impacted in recent periods by the macroeconomic environment in Russia, which has negatively affected our rate of revenue growth and our operating margins. The depreciation of the Russian ruble in 2015 increased the ruble amount of our U.S. dollar‑denominated expenses, including the rent on our Moscow headquarters and the acquisition of servers and networking equipment, and has generally increased the rate of inflation in Russia. In addition to the impact of the current macroeconomic environment, the trends described below are key drivers of our results of operations.

Our business and revenues have grown rapidly since inception, and the effectiveness of performance‑based advertising as a medium has contributed to the rapid growth of our business. Advertising spending continues to shift from offline to online as the internet evolves, and we expect that our business will continue to grow. However, we expect that our revenue growth rate will continue to decline over time as a result of a number of factors, including challenges in maintaining our growth rate as our revenues increase to higher levels, increasing competition, particularly on mobile devices, changes in the nature of queries, the evolution of the overall online advertising market and the declining rate of growth in internet users in Russia as overall internet penetration increases.

Our operating margins, representing our income from operations as a percentage of revenues, may fluctuate in the future depending on the percentage of our advertising revenues that we derive from the Yandex ad network compared with our own websites. The operating margin we realize on revenues generated from the websites of our partners in the Yandex ad network is significantly lower than the operating margin generated from our own websites. The percentage of our advertising revenues derived from the Yandex ad network increased from 26.0% in 2015 to 27.1% in 2016 and decreased to 25.5% in 2017. We currently expect that the portion of our advertising revenues derived from the Yandex ad network will remain roughly flat in 2018. The margin we earn, on average, on revenue generated from the Yandex ad network could decrease in the future if we are required to share with our partners a greater percentage of the advertising fees generated through their websites.

Growth in mobile search may also have an impact on our operating margins. The number of search queries from mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets is growing more quickly than desktop queries. Queries from mobile devices still, however, represented only 36.2% of our total search queries and 29.0% of our search revenues for

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the year ended December 31, 2017. To date, growth in mobile usage has not had a material impact on our pricing, revenues or operating margins; however, we have seen some evidence that this growth may exert modest downward pressure on our revenues and operating margins in the future.

Recent and future capital expenditures may also put pressure on our operating margins. Our capital expenditures decreased from RUB 13,045 million in 2015 to RUB 9,625 million in 2016, and increased to RUB 12,389 million in 2017. We spent approximately 81% of our total capital expenditures in 2017 on servers and data center expansion to support growth in our current operations. Our depreciation and amortization expense slightly decreased as a percentage of revenues from 13.0% in 2015 to 12.7% in 2016, and continued decreasing to 11.9% in 2017. We currently expect our capital expenditures in 2018 to be in mid-teens as a percentage of revenues. However, in case we consider any new project, which may require additional capital expenditures, our capital expenditures may increase as a percentage of our revenues in 2018.

To support further brand enhancement and respond to competitive pressures, we spent larger amounts in 2016 and 2017 on advertising and marketing than we have spent historically, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of revenue. A significant portion of our advertising and marketing expense in 2016 and 2017 relates to our efforts to promote primarily our Yandex.Taxi and our Search services, and to support our brand in Russia and the other markets in which we operate. In 2017 Yandex.Taxi added 97 cities with 100,000+ population and 38 cities with population of 50,000+. As of December 2017, the service was available in 167 cities with 100,000+ population, and in 56 cities with population of 50,000+ across Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Previously Yandex.Taxi reported that the service was operating in 46 cities across Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine as of December 31, 2016, which primarily reflected the number of cities, where the number of rides exceeded 1,000 rides a week. We expect to continue to invest significantly in advertising and marketing. We currently expect our overall advertising and marketing costs in 2018 to remain roughly stable as a percentage of revenues in comparison to 2017 due to continuing investment to promote our services. This spending will not significantly impact our operating margin rate. However, we expect our operating margin to decrease as a percentage of revenues in the near term as a result of increasing share of business units as a percentage of total revenues, operating margins of which are lower compared with our core business.  

In Turkey we provide users in this country with Yandex’s major products such as search, mail, maps, traffic, weather and browser. The main focus of our Turkish office is providing advertising services to local customers and promoting our core services, mainly search and geo informational services.

Our revenues are impacted by seasonal fluctuations in internet usage and in advertising expenditures. Internet usage and advertising expenditures generally slow down during the months when there are extended Russian public holidays and vacations, and are significantly higher in the fourth quarter of each year. Moreover, expenditures by advertisers tend to be cyclical, reflecting overall economic conditions, retail patterns and advertising budgeting and buying patterns.

Inflation in Russia has also impacted our results of operations and may continue to do so. According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat, the consumer price index in Russia increased by 12.9% and 5.4% in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and by 2.5% in 2017. The lower annual rate of inflation in 2016 and 2017 reflected the appreciation of the Russian ruble. We can provide no assurance that the annual rate of inflation will not increase significantly in 2018. Higher rates of inflation may accelerate increases in our operating expenses and capital expenditures and reduce the value and purchasing power of our ruble‑denominated assets, such as cash, cash equivalents and term deposits.

Changes in the value of the U.S. dollar compared with the Russian ruble can also negatively affect our results of operations. See “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk—Foreign Currency Exchange Risk.”

Recent Acquisitions

RosTaxi

In January 2015, we bought the assets and assumed the liabilities of the RosTaxi (“RosTaxi”) business, which operates a taxi fleet management application. The agreement provides for cash consideration of up to RUB 500 million, including a deferred payment of up to RUB 380 million, subject to successful technical integration and client base

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transition, and contingent consideration of up to RUB 500 million payable in our ordinary shares on the third anniversary of the closing, depending on the number of qualifying taxi trips. During 2015, 2016, 2017 and in January 2018 deferred payments in the amount of RUB 50, RUB 65, RUB 195 and RUB 70 million, respectively, were paid. Contingent consideration depending on the number of qualifying taxi trips has been settled in full in February, 2018.

Agnitum

In December 2015, we completed the acquisition of assets and assumption of liabilities of Agnitum Ltd (“Agnitum”), an antivirus protection developer, for cash consideration of RUB 120 million and a deferred payment of up to RUB 80 million including additional payments subject to the attainment of certain implementation and integration milestones of up to RUB 60 million payable in cash and up to RUB 20 million to be granted in restricted share units.  A deferred payment in the amount of RUB 60 million was paid in cash in 2016.

We did not complete any business combinations in 2016.

Shkulev

In June 2017, we completed the acquisition of assets and assumption of liabilities of Hearst Shkulev Digital LLC (“Shkulev”),   one of the biggest regional auto classifieds with the leading position in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions of the Russian Federation, for a cash consideration of RUB 401 million, including a contingent consideration of RUB 52 million, subject to successful technical integration and client base transition.

FoodFox

In December 2017, we completed the acquisition of a 100% ownership interest in Deloam Management Limited and its subsidiary (“FoodFox”). Foodfox is one of the leading food delivery operators in Moscow. The primary purpose of the acquisition of FoodFox was to enlarge the range of services provided by us. The fair value of consideration transferred totaled RUB 595 million and consisted of cash consideration of RUB 541 million and deferred consideration of RUB 54 million. The deferred consideration arrangement requires the Company to pay the additional cash consideration to FoodFox’s former shareholders and convertible debt holders, when certain legal conditions are being met within one-year period.

Other Acquisition in 2017

During the year ended December 31, 2017, we completed another acquisition for total consideration of approximately RUB 66 million.

 

Transaction with Uber

In February 2018, we and Uber International C.V. have completed the merger of Yandex.Taxi Holding B.V. and its subsidiaries and several Uber legal entities into a new private limited liability company MLU B.V., incorporated under the laws of the Netherlands. We and Uber have each contributed legal entities related to ride-sharing and food delivery businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia,  Kyrgyzstan and Moldova, and $100.0 million (RUB 5,722 million as of the date of acquisition) and $225.0 million (RUB million 12,874 as of the date of acquisition) in cash, respectively.

 

A further description of the acquisitions and their accounting implications can be found in Notes 4 and 18 of our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report.

 

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Results of Operations

The following table presents our historical consolidated results of operations as a percentage of revenues for the periods indicated:

		Year ended December 31,
		2015		2016		2017
Revenues		100.0	%	100.0	%	100.0	%
Operating costs and expenses:
Cost of revenues		28.1		26.0		25.5
Product development		22.5		20.8		19.9
Sales, general and administrative		19.4		23.6		28.8
Depreciation and amortization		13.0		12.7		11.9
Goodwill impairment		1.0		0.0		0.0
Total operating costs and expenses		84.0		83.1		86.1
Income from operations		16.0		16.9		13.9
Interest income		5.1		3.8		3.1
Interest expense		(2.2)		(1.6)		(1.0)
Other income/(loss), net		3.8		(4.5)		(1.6)
Income before income taxes		22.7		14.6		14.4
Provision for income taxes		6.5		5.7		5.2
Net income		16.2	%	8.9	%	9.2	%

Our consolidated operating margin slightly increased from 16.0% in 2015 to 16.9% in 2016 and decreased to 13.9% in 2017. The decrease in 2017 compared with 2016 was primarily due to an increase in marketing and advertising expenses as a percentage of our total revenues, reflecting our efforts to promote our Yandex.Taxi and our Search services, and to support our brand in Russia and the other markets in which we operate. The slight increase in 2016 compared with 2015 was primarily due to a decrease in traffic acquisition costs paid to our partners in the Yandex ad network as a percentage of our total revenues as well as to a decrease in rent expenses attributable to our Moscow headquarters, which is U.S. dollar‑denominated, reflecting the Russian ruble appreciation, as well as absence of goodwill impairment recorded in 2016: partly offset by an increase in marketing and advertising expenses as a percentage of our total revenues, reflecting our efforts to promote our Yandex.Taxi, Yandex.Market and Yandex Browser and to support our brand in Russia and the other markets in which we operate.

 

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The following table presents our historical results of operations by reportable segment for the periods indicated:

		Year ended December 31,
		2015		2016		2017
		(in millions of RUB)
Revenues
Search and Portal		55,905		69,256		83,975
E ‑ commerce		3,400		4,718		4,968
Classifieds		894		1,304		2,082
Taxi		984		2,313		4,891
Experiments		441		830		1,658
Eliminations		(1,832)		(2,496)		(3,520)
Total revenues		59,792		75,925		94,054
Operating costs and expenses
Search and Portal		40,706		49,236		57,424
E ‑ commerce		1,776		3,355		3,412
Classifieds		764		1,378		1,997
Taxi		848		4,438		12,900
Experiments		3,850		3,012		3,626
Eliminations		(1,832)		(2,496)		(3,520)
Total operating costs and expenses		46,112		58,923		75,839
Adjusted operating income
Search and Portal		15,199		20,020		26,551
E ‑ commerce		1,624		1,363		1,556
Classifieds		130		(74)		85
Taxi		136		(2,125)		(8,009)
Experiments		(3,409)		(2,182)		(1,968)
Eliminations		—		—		—
Total adjusted operating income		13,680		17,002		18,215

Eliminations represent the elimination of transaction results between the reportable segments, primarily related to advertising. Operating costs and expenses of reportable segments exclude share‑based compensation expense, goodwill impairment, amortization of acquisition‑related intangible assets and compensation expense related to contingent consideration.

Revenues

The following table presents our consolidated revenues, by source, in absolute terms and as a percentage of total revenues for the periods presented:

		Year ended December 31,
		2015				2016				2017
		RUB		% of Revenues		RUB		% of Revenues		RUB		% of Revenues
		(in millions of RUB, except percentages)
Advertising revenues(1):
Yandex websites		43,099		72.1	%	52,888		69.7	%	65,149		69.3	%
Yandex ad network websites		15,111		25.3		19,691		25.9		22,251		23.7
Total advertising revenues		58,210		97.4		72,579		95.6		87,400		93.0
Other revenues		1,582		2.6		3,346		4.4		6,654		7.0
Total revenues		59,792		100.0	%	75,925		100.0	%	94,054		100.0	%

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