Yandex.Classifieds Reports Record Revenue at Lower Margins for Q3

Russian search giant Yandex has released the results from its Q3 activities. Apart from running the most popular search engine in Russia, the NASDAQ listed firm also runs several vertical businesses including an online classifieds division known as Yandex.Classifieds.

The Classifieds segment includes autos marketplace Auto.ru, employment portal Yandex.Jobs and Yandex.Realty which counts itself among the challengers in the real estate vertical.

Results for Yandex.Classifieds for the three months ending September 30th show that the business increased revenues by 31% over a lacklustre and pandemic-affected Q3 of 2020. The $29.5 million generated represents the best revenue return for any quarter for the segment but came at an EBITDA margin of 22.5%, significantly down from the 36.5% seen in Q2.

While the increase in revenue was ascribed by the company's report to the autos market picking up, the drop in EBITDA margin for the quarter was put down to "increased investments into the development and marketing of new products, which allowed for improvement to our market share despite intensifying competition".

Yandex's real estate portal realty.yandex.ru competes in the market with the likes of DomClick, Prosus-owned Domofond and Cian.ru which is set to go public on the NYSE.