Updated!

Russian Internet

Russian Internet? What's that? Does it exist? Having been asked recently "Is there Internet in Russia?", I'd like to put together this basic info on RuNet = Internet in Russian.

• The Russian language is the sixth most widely spoken language in the world, following Mandarin, English, Hindi/Urdu, Arabic and Spanish. It is also one of the United Nations' six main languages. (Reuters Press Agency)
  
  
• Runet to be populated by 44 million users, or 37% of the 18+ population. Russian sites do $3 billion in annual transactions. (Russian Internet Forum)
  
  
• Russia ranks 6th to 7th in the number of domain names ( .ru) in the world, having reached one million in 2007, two million in 2009 and three million in 2010. The first .ru website in Russian was registered 15 years ago.

  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has already approved domain registration in Cyrillic .rf (Russian Federation). The detailed procedure is ready, the initial registration started in November 2009 and it is the first non-Latin domain on the Internet. Now there are more than half a million sites in this new domain. (Russia Today)
  
  

• Russian-language online advertising is expected to grow by about 50% each year, now reaching $600 million a year. (Russia Today)
  
  
• In 2010, 65.2% of all searches in Russia were conducted on Yandex.ru , followed by Russian Google (22.7%), Mail.ru, Rambler.ru, says a new study of Internet usage in Russia. (comScore.com)
  
  
• Russia was already the second largest Internet market in Europe in 2008. (comScore.com)
  
  
• Top online advertisers comprised the following industries:
  1) Mobile communications - Beeline, Megafon, MTS (MTSC)
  2) Automotive - Nissan (NSANY), Toyota (TM), Peugeot, Volvo
  3) Mobile phones - Nokia (NOK)
  4) Consumer goods - Wrigley (WWY), Procter & Gamble (PG)
  5) Technology - Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM), Microsoft (MSFT)
  6) Telecommunications - Comstar
  7) Retail - Eldorado, M-Video, Evroset, Technosila
  8) Financial services - Citibank (C), Maxwell (MXWL)