To begin, let's take a step back and look at numbers relating to Russian usage of mobile applications in 2020 in general. AppAnnie's recent report provided some mind-blowing numbers about Russian use of mobile applications.

Zooming in on the numbers

2020 saw the number of downloads of mobile apps worldwide reach a record 218 B — an increase of 7% from the previous year. 5.58 B of these downloads took place in Russia. This helps place Russia firmly in line with overall global trends, but we are interested in how Russian users contributed to that global growth.

Users spend two things in mobile apps — time and money. For Russia in 2020, both types of spending were impressive: users spent $1.33 B USD and 94 B hours respectively.

Taking an even closer look at the 94 B hours, there is another significant trend to take note of: Russians went from spending an average of 2.6 hours per day in mobile apps in 2019 to 3.5 hours per day in 2020.

Let's look more closely at the facts and figures for the gaming market in particular. In terms of the number of downloads, casual games were the most popular category in 2020, amounting to 78%. Russians spent the most money in games like Brawl Stars (Supercell), Hero Wars (Nexterns) and State of Survival (KingsGroup), whereas they spent the most in time in Roblox (Roblox), Brawl Stars (Supercell) and Among Us (Innercell).

Is it time to expand into the Russian market?

Have these numbers piqued your interest in the Russian market? If so, let's look at some of the benefits that Yandex can offer as you consider promoting your app in Russia:

1. Yandex has local expertise — Yandex is an exception to international trends — we are a local player dominating the Russian online search space. With a daily audience of more than 52 M users and 60% of the search market (as of February 2, 2021), it is Yandex's local expertise and cutting-edge technology that have made it Russia's largest IT company.
2. A specialized product with a range of targeting types — Yandex's Ads for mobile apps are easy to launch, with Yandex.Direct loading much of the ad content via your link to your app in the app store. Add a tracker and your ad texts and you are ready to go! You can then customize your ads so that they appear to the types of users you are seeking — you can set the age, gender, operating system (iOS or Android), device type (smartphone/tablet) and connection type (Wi-Fi/mobile) that you want to see your ads.
3. Powered by machine learning — Yandex uses its own proprietary artificial intelligence technologies to ensure that your users see highly relevant ads. Yandex works to continuously develop a variety of methods to match anonymized user profile with everything we know about the apps being promoted. Such matching leverages real-time data from multiple Yandex services, including Yandex Search and Yandex.Go. This combination of technology and data allows us to serve your ads to the right user at the right time.
4. A reliable channel for your app's portfolio — In one month alone, Yandex's vast mobile advertising inventory provided advertisers with 1.9 B impressions (December 2020). That number is up from 480 M impressions in February of the same year, making Yandex Ads for mobile apps a sound addition to your app's marketing portfolio.
5. Anti-fraud protection and detailed statistics — Only pay for real contact with real users, thanks to Yandex's antifraud system which combines both manual checks and machine learning algorithms to filter out low-quality traffic. What's more, Yandex provides detailed analytical reports that provide transparency into what kind of return your investment is providing.
6. Proven results — Recent tests among advertisers taking Yandex Ads for mobile apps for a test drive, who used identical budgets over the same periods, showed a CTR of 0.56% and a conversion rate 2.8%.

If you are looking for a reliable, transparent and effective way to attract more users, increase in-app purchases or bring back users no longer active in your app, Yandex Ads for mobile apps can help. To find out a bit more about this format, have a look at the last portion of our recent training course, led by Yandex expert Anton Ivanov.

Of course, if you need assistance or still have questions, our specialists will be glad to assist you in getting started. You can reach us by clicking here.