MOSCOW. Feb 3 (Interfax) - Major Russian Internet company Yandex has reached a deal with Skype, which became a subdivision of Microsoft last fall, about mutual distribution of services, the Russian search engine company said in a press release.

Yandex will promote Skype on its portal and Skype will use a customized version of Yandex.Bar. The latter will add a new Skype button, showing the balance in the users account and enabling the user to add money to the account with the Yandex.Money payment system.

Yandex.Money has been Skype's exclusive partner for accepting payments in Russia since 2006. Yandex reports that the number of Yandex.Money clients paying for Skype has doubled since 2010. The Russian Internet company points out that Skype is interested in the international audience, with which Yandex.Money began working at the start of 2011.

The average bill for Skpe clients using Yandex.Money to pay for services is around 300 rubles. The number of users paying for Skype services through Yandex.Money increased 40% year-on-year in January-September 2011.

In addition, Skype will suggest to users that they install the Yandex search engine by default. Earlier, Skype proposed Google, the Yandex press release said.

In the fall of 2011, Google took a similar step installing its own search engine by default on the web browser Chrome - leading to a considerable drop in Yandex's share of the Russian search market. At the time Yandex share quotes slumped 13.1% to $22.9 per share, almost half the market price that followed May's IPO ($42.01).

The comScore agency said that the number of Russian Skype users increased to 22.4 million in December 2011, up 41% from 15.8 million in December 2010. The number of