Yandex Blog

Looking Back on 2018 with Yandex.Music

This was a big year for Yandex.Music, as we expanded to three new countries (Armenia, Uzbekistan, and Israel) and our streaming service became available through new platforms, like our Yandex.Station smart speaker and Yandex.Phone.  Yandex.Music provides over 20 million listeners in six countries with access to tens of millions of tracks. As 2018 comes to a close, we wanted to take a look at what our users on Yandex.Music have been listening to the most over the past year.  We’ve looked at stats for each country and found a few key trends that stand out.  The Yandex.Music experts found the most popular artists for each market, as well as the most streamed foreign and Russian-language artists.

Pop, dance and rap artists delivered the most popular tracks in each country, with our listeners in most markets having fairly similar tastes.  The most popular song in four of the five countries was “In My Mind,” the dance hit by Dynoro and Gigi D'Agostino.  Only in Kazakhstan was the song edged out for the top spot, with our listeners there giving the most streams to “Medina” by Kazakhstani rapper Jan Khalib.  DJs Dynoro and Gigi D’Agostino were not the only Western artists to be heavily streamed, as other familiar names such as Sia, David Guetta, Calvin Harris, and Imagine Dragons had tracks popular among our listeners in all of our countries.

Yandex.Music users were also particularly fond of Russian-language artists.  Aside from Jan Khalib, whose “Medina” was one of the most streamed tracks on Yandex.Music, many other singers who perform in Russian filled out the top 10 lists.  In Russia, Russian-language artists nabbed half of the ten most popular tracks, but they were popular in our other markets as well.  Some constants included LOBODA, an established pop favorite across the Russian-speaking world, whose hit “SuperSTAR” was one of the most streamed songs in nearly every market.  The rapper MATRANG was also popular on multiple charts, as was singer Philipp Kirkorov.

One of the most notable breakthrough successes of 2018 on Yandex.Music was Russian singer Monetochka.  The young pop artist was discovered mainly due to her YouTube performances becoming viral, and her May album, “Coloring For Adults,” was a huge hit on Yandex.Music.  Her song “Every Time” was one of the most streamed tracks in nearly all of our markets.

Some other standout artists also had a good year in the markets served by Yandex.Music.  MARUV is a Ukrainian pop singer who typically records in English, and scored one of the most popular songs in Russia with her collaboration with producer Boosin, “Drunk Groove.”  Another one of their English collaborations, “Black Water,” was a hit as well, especially in Kazakhstan.  While Dua Lipa will likely be familiar to our international readers, less known may be the Korean pop group BLACKPINK.  Not only was their English and Korean song “Kiss and Make Up” the second most popular song in Israel, but Israel was the only Yandex.Music country where their song made it into the top 10.

We’re happy to continue providing our millions of listeners with a great, easy way to listen to their favorite tracks.  Here’s to an even bigger 2019!

Tune in to Yandex.Radio

Today we’ve announced our newly hatched personal ‘jukebox’ media player Yandex.Radio. This service will be appreciated by anyone wishing to always hear ambient music matching their personal preferences, or serving as a backdrop to anything they do or how they feel at any time of their day or night. The user interface of Yandex.Radio is simple and intuitive – it just lets you play the music that you will enjoy.

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Yandex.Radio shares a catalogue of more than 20 million tracks with Yandex.Music, Yandex’s recommendation-based music streaming service, which was first launched in 2010 and re-launched after a major overhaul in 2014. While Yandex.Music helps listeners discover new music based on their interests and preferences, Yandex.Radio offers them the music that matches their current mood or activity.

Out of 10 million people currently tuning in to Yandex.Music every month, one million do this on their mobile phones. This million of people just like to have some background music while they are working out in a gym, driving to work, or chatting at a party. Alternatively, people choose their background music to match how they feel at the moment – cheerful or vigorous, moody or relaxed. Yandex.Radio is a service for those who like to choose their music based on their current activity or state of mind. The new service taps into the catalogue of Yandex.Music to offer these users more than a hundred stations to choose from – not only depending on their mood or current activity, but also on a genre or time period of music.

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Yandex.Radio is now available on desktop, as well as on iOS- and Android-based devices. The personal recommendation technology in use on the Yandex.Music service has also been implemented in Yandex.Radio to play music based not only on the listener’s settings, but also their personal preferences, streaming history, and previous likes or dislikes.

The new personal jukebox player is currently available free of charge only to users in Russia. The revenue from the service will come from audio advertising, which is a novel format for our business. Just like traditional radio broadcasting, Yandex.Radio will feature audio ads, which in the future will be complemented with a graphic image or text both in the app and on the desktop service. Advertisers on Yandex.Radio will be able to enjoy all the advertising and audience targeting possibilities available to them on Yandex.Direct, as well as banner advertising.