Yandex, a growing search engine that is known as Russia's equivalent of Google, has purchased car information site Auto.ru in a $175 million acquisition deal, Bloomberg News reported.
The search company is looking to expand into classifieds, something that will be boosted by Auto.ru's 400,000 listings for new and used cars as well as auto parts.
"Auto.ru is the leading vehicle classifieds website in Moscow and is in the top 3 across Russia," Yandex said in a statement quoted by Bloomberg News.
Launched in 1996, the Auto.ru site is Yandex's ninth acquisition and will allow the search engine to collect revenue both from actual car listings and the ads that will be displayed beside them, TechCrunch reported.
Besides showing listings for cars and auto parts, Auto.ru brings in users with auto news, vehicle research and other car-related content.
"Users come to Auto.ru to research what vehicles they should buy, read the latest auto news, search for tires and spare parts and buy and sell their vehicles," Alexey Tretyakov, VP of Commerce at Yandex, said in a statement quoted by TechCrunch. "The acquisition of Auto.ru will enable Yandex to provide more comprehensive answers to users' questions and expand our capabilities in auto classifieds."
Yandex holds twice the market share of Google in Russia and has been growing through acquisitions such as KinoPoisk, a Russian site similar to the IMDB movie database. Just like Google, Yandex has expanded its business into applications, maps and mail, according to TechCrunch.
The twofold goal is to increase adspace and improve business within verticals like Auto.ru, which can serve increasingly targeted ads to users.
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