Alexander Shulgin
Analyst · Deutsche Bank
Thank you, Ilya. In the second quarter 2012, the Yandex consolidated revenues increased 50% year-on-year to RUR 6.8 billion. Contextual or text-based advertising continues to be the main growth driver for us, growing at 50% year-on-year and accounting for 89% of total revenues. Yandex's own websites bring the bulk of text-based revenue accounting for 72% of total revenue, while ads on the Yandex ad network accounted for 17% of the total revenue. The Yandex advertising network grew 93% year-on-year. This accelerated growth in partner revenue is primarily explained by 2 factors. Improvements in the ad service technology and addition of Rambler search to the partner network. Both of these changes were introduced in Q3 2011. Display advertising in Q2 accelerated to the growth from Q1 and we are determined to repeat that goal that -- though it's slightly tied behind contextual. During Q2, display revenue demonstrated a 43% year-on-year growth rate. Display advertising accounted for 9% of total revenue. The remaining 2% of our total revenues came from Yandex.Money and other sources. Our traffic acquisition costs related to the partner network grew in line with its revenue growth while distribution tax growth was slightly ahead of owned and operated revenue, remaining approximately the same as percentage of owned revenue compared to Q1 2012. As a result, total ex-TAC revenue increased 45% year-on-year. Text-based revenue was primarily driven by paid clicks, which increased 62% year-on-year. Accelerated growth in clicks came as an expected result of web technology recently introduced in Q3 2012. We are very pleased by the growth in paid clicks, which is a key metric to driving revenue. We expect to grow paid clicks while keeping CPC low to drive customer growth. As anticipated, in Q2 the effective CPC declined year-on-year, about 7%. On a sequential basis, however, we saw an increase in effective CPC from Q1 2012 of around 18%, which is consistent with what we saw in Q1 2011 on a sequential basis. As we cycle the full year, we've added technology initiatives for the last 5 years from Q3 2011, we expect to see normalized growth pattern, with the stage could grow slightly slower than overall revenue while CPC would grow at low single-digit rates. Our total operating costs, excluding traffic acquisition costs grew 35% slower than revenue. Just to remind, in Q2 a year ago we incurred considerable marketing and IPO-related costs, as well as a relatively high personnel-related expense due to aggressive hiring. This past quarter, we maintained a normalized level of marketing and legal costs, and proceeded with disciplined hiring, adding 133 employees during the quarter, bringing the total headcount to just under 3,500 employees. Our depreciation and amortization expense for the quarter increased 63%. Of this growth rate, in excess of revenue growth primarily due to last year's funnel of investments, insurer funds and related equipment. Accordingly in Q2, our adjusted EBITDA increased 60% and our adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 45%, up from 32% a year ago -- in Q2 a year ago. This quarter, we saw a small ForEx effect in our net margins with a RUR 52 million gain, primarily related to dollar-denominated cash and term deposits held in Russia, reflecting a 12% strengthening of the dollar during the quarter. By the end of June, we've almost fully paid [indiscernible] in Russia but ForEx effect going forward will be very minimal. And on a related note, considerable volatility of the Russian ruble exchange rate in Q2 affected some analyst's estimate and the way consensus falls at what is voted for the quarter. As a reminder, since we report in rubles, we translate our quarterly financials including the P&L, into U.S. dollars at the quarter-end exchange rate, that was approximately at RUR 32.8 at June 30, 2012. Some Russian companies that choose to report in U.S. dollars translate their income statement at the average exchange rate of the quarter. In Q2 2012, the average exchange rate was approximately RUR 31 for $1. Analysts, particularly those who cover several Russian companies including Yandex, may choose to apply average exchange rate approach to all companies. This new process may result in incompatibility between our translation and analysts estimates, as well as among the results of different companies in this sector. Therefore, we urge you to pay special attention to the exchange rate underlying any dollar base number for the quarter. Our own effective income tax rate in Q2 was 21.7%, reflecting management's intention to continue to reinvest cash generated in Russia without ups in the dividends to our parent holding company in The Netherlands. As a result, our net income increased 76% faster than operating income. And our net income margin was 29%. Adjusted net income, after correcting for the effects of share-based compensation following exchange gains and losses, and the USD 1.68 million of contingent compensation related to the acquisition of SPB Software, grew 64% and our adjusted net income margin was 30%. Our CapEx was RUR 700 million or 10% of revenue. Please note that our CapEx is not usually evenly spread across quarters. We earlier guided that our CapEx will be down to the typical historical level of 18% to 20%. This year, most likely, our CapEx will be even below our normal level of 20%. Talking about our balance sheet, we have the equivalent of USD 742 million in cash, cash equivalents, term deposits and other investments and debt instrument. On this amount, approximately half is in U.S. dollars, in the Netherlands and the other half of sales in Russia in rubles, and even invested in bank deposits. And finally, turning to guidance. Given the dynamics that we see in the market and our performance year-to-date, we are confirming our full year guidance, expecting our annual growth for the full year 2012 to be in the 40% to 45% range of our full year 2011. This forecast does not assume any major shift in the macro-economic environment in our markets and reflects our basic view of the expected business trends as we see them today. I will now turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A session. Thank you.