Turkish Yandex Gambit - expert opinions

Today, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev took 2 days for Government members to work out and impose sanctions against Turkey:

Restrictions on financial transactions, and restrictions on foreign trade transactions, and changes in customs duties - import and export, measures of influence on the tourism sector, on transportation - including transit, movement of aircraft and ships, and humanitarian contacts. Finally, on the use of labor.

Roy almost immediately released a “Yandex card” with the words that 3 days after the fall of the Su-24, either over Turkey or Syria:

The position of the Russian "Yandex" in Turkey has not yet become a public topic for replicas at the head of the Russian Government.

Yandex is the only major Russian IT company active in Turkey. Thus, the official office was opened in 2011, and unofficially, the company has been present in the local Turkish market since 2010. For several years, as of the end of 2014, Yandex has raised its own search share in the country to 8%. In 2012, Panorama Yandex.Maps made Turkish intelligence nervous, and last year one of the company's employees received a suspended sentence for filming military facilities. In the spring of the 14th, Arkady Volozh recognized: “we are very sensitive to any macro risks, especially political ones”.

Now everything has changed. And since the press service of Yandex immediately declined any comments on this topic, we decided to ask the experts their opinions about the future prospects of the company’s work in the Turkish market and, in general, in the region.

The question we asked the experts is: “How do you think the freezing of relations between Moscow and Ankara will affect the Turkish business of Yandex?”

German Klimenko , Institute for Internet Development:

Assuming that Turkey decides to somehow limit or ban Yandex on its territory is easy enough. It will be very sad if, as a result of the current conflict, Yandex becomes a bargaining chip of the current conflict.

Leonid Delitsyn , an expert investment company "FINAM":

So far, it’s too early to talk about freezing relationships. But even if this happens, and even if Yandex ceases its activities in Turkey, the second will not follow from the first. Back in June, when relations between the countries were warm enough, analysts suggested that in 2016 our search engine would cease active operations on the Turkish market. In 2011, at the beginning of the project, the company's management voiced a goal of 20%, and even if, in fact, the expectations were lower, they were unlikely to be achieved. Now Yandex is in the second decade of popularity among the Turkish audience (judging by the Alexa rating) - which, in itself, is a good result, but Google takes the first two lines of the rating. Given the fact that the Turkish Internet advertising market is much smaller than the Russian one, it can be assumed that the loss will be small. However, if the withdrawal takes place, the company can now justify it for political reasons, and thus avoid discussing the difficulties of international expansion. The reaction of the stock market in any case will be negative, but not strong.

Ilya Sachkov , Group IB:

I do not think that will be reflected strongly. Yandex has good technology, it is not related to security and / or defense capability, therefore, politicians are obviously less. Smart users for the advantage of technology and are unlikely to be willing to abandon it because of political conflicts.

Nikolay Kononov , editor-in-chief of Sekret Firmy:

It is not yet clear how deep the frost will comprehend this relationship.

What do you think? Leave your own arguments in the comments.