Yandex Acquires GIS Technologies

Internet, July 1, 2010. Yandex has completed the acquisition deal with GIS Technologies, which since 2008 provides data for one of the company’s key services, Yandex.Maps.

“Internet technologies revolutionized cartography. Electronic maps can instantly reflect the real-life changes that paper maps are too slow to capture,” says Maria Laufer, head of Yandex.Maps. “We need a GIS company to help us create ‘real-life’ maps for our users.”

Acquisition of GIS Technologies alters the company’s approach to map production. Now, Yandex has at its disposal an in-house team of cartographers and a streamlined production process, along with ready-made solutions and all necessary permits and licenses. At the same time, Yandex will keep using mapping data from its current and new providers.

Previously, Yandex evolved Yandex.Maps through the purchase of Smilink in 2008 that consequently became the Yandex.Traffic service. In 2007, Yandex bought the SmartCom team who was later responsible for creating a popular application Yandex.Maps for mobile.

According to ТNS, a monthly audience of Yandex.Maps exceeds 9.2 million, which makes it the largest mapping service in Russia. In total, it offers more than 170 detailed city maps and more than 370 satellite images. Users can view maps both online and from their mobile devices. In April this year, Yandex launched a new geographic information service People’s Map that allows users draw maps over high resolution satellite images. In the first few months since its launch, the service has seen more than 100 city maps generated by users.

Contact:
Media Relations
Vladimir Isaev, Ochir Mandzhikov
Phone: +7 495 739-7000
E-mail: pr@yandex-team.com