Yandex to double capex in 2011
MOSCOW. April 29 (Interfax) - Leading Russian Internet search engine Yandex plans to boost charter capital to about 4.4 billion rubles in 2011, up from 2.199 billion rubles in 2010, according to the prospectus for Yandex's upcoming IPO.
The company invested 978 million rubles in the first quarter of 2011.
Most of the investment will go to purchasing servers and expanding data centers to support growth in current operations and a potential expansion abroad, it says.
The increase in capex could lead to lower operating margins, it says.
Capex totaled 987 million rubles in 2009.
"We are studying opportunities for a geographical expansion and our developing our technology, infrastructure and expertise in order to enter other countries where we might enjoy competitive advantages. We plan to allocate a portion of our capex in 2011 to these initiatives," the prospectus says.
Yandex begin including foreign sites in its searches carried out from the yandex.com domain. The company already has operations outside Russia, in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
A source familiar with the company's plans said last fall that Yandex is thinking about "expansion abroad, entry into new markets, to compete with Google in some places."
Yandex had a 65% share of Internet searches in Russia in the first quarter of 2011 (compared with 64% for the full-year 2009).
