"Yandex" can become a partner of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB). The fact that the companies are in talks about the partnership was told by people from the Yandex part. According to them, the question is, firstly, about the different options of the joint promotion of services, "Yandex" for the Russian Facebook audience, and secondly, about the advertising - the exchange of user data from both companies. The fact of negotiations was also confirmed by a person close to Facebook partners. Discussion is at an early stage.
Facebook has an interest in the services that are popular in Russia, - taxi, shopping, movie tickets, airline tickets, hotel reservations. "Yandex" could be the operator of these services for Facebook – it already has "Yandeks.Taksi", "Yandex.Market", and others. Members of social networks could pay for Yandex services or make purchases through the "Yandex.Market" directly from Facebook, and revenue from these transactions of the company would be divided. However, for this to work, the two companies will establish a pass-through authentication.
One of the interlocutors said that the companies are discussing the union of targeting advertising or user data for advertising sales.
In addition, "Yandex" and Facebook are talking about hyperlocal targeting - a system that will show the Facebook user discounts of close stores or cafes. "Yandex" has already shown the users of Facebook and Instagram discounts in its pilot service "Yandeks.Moment". If "Yandex (MCX: YNDX)" will be able to reach an agreement with Facebook, it will assume the role of a single agency that would work with hundreds of thousands of small advertisers from offline.
The access to the mobile audience is a painful question for "Yandex": the company does not have its mobile platform and there is a claim to the way its services will be distributed through the rival platform - Google Android. Android's share in Russia, according to "Yandex", is greater than 86%.
Facebook is successfully developing in the mobile environment: its application is in the top 3 most popular in the world, said Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The second most popular is the instant messenger WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, and the third is Chrome browser from Google. In these three applications smartphone and tablet users spend 80% of the time.
The total audience of Facebook in Russia is 1.6 times less than that of "Yandex": 12.6 million against 20.4 million people.