双语阅读｜成立20年的Yandex雄心超过谷歌
ARKADY VOLOZH, the bearded co-founder of Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, bristles at his company being branded the “Google of Russia”. Far from emulating the American firm, Yandex launched in 1997, a full year before Google, he points out. More crucially, the moniker poorly describes what Yandex offers today, which is a group of products and services that includes taxis, shopping, payments, music and education. “Really we’re the Silicon Valley of Russia,” says Mikhail Parakhin, Yandex’s chief technology officer.
作为俄罗斯最大的搜索引擎，Yandex被称为“俄罗斯的谷歌”；身为公司联合创立人的大胡子阿卡迪·沃罗兹（Arkady Volozh）对这一说法极为反感。他指出，Yandex成立于1997年，比谷歌早了整整一年，根据不存在模仿一说。最重要的是，这一绰号无法体现Yandex的业务范围——如今，它提供包括打车、购物、支付、音乐、教育在内的一系列产品和服务。Yandex首席技术官米哈伊尔·帕尔克林（Mikhail Parakhin）说：“其实，我们是俄罗斯的硅谷（Silicon Valley）。”
That may only be a slight overstatement. Yandex’s Russian presence is immense; it accounts for just over half of the search market and 61% of online advertising, and its sites attract over 60m visitors each month. Like American tech giants, it is also expanding its offline logistical capabilities, signing recent deals with Uber, a ride-hailing firm, and with Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, to build out its transportation and e-commerce businesses.
这并非夸大之辞。Yandex在俄罗斯无所不在，占据了超过半数的市场份额和61%的在线广告，每月访问人数超过6000万。与美国的一些科技巨头一样，Yandex也在扩展其线下物流。近期，它与网络打车公司优步（Uber)及俄罗斯最大的银行联邦储蓄银行（Sberbank）签定协议，要建构出行和电商业务。
Yandex doubled down on its home market, which accounts for 92% of its revenues, after a failed foray into Turkey soon after listing on NASDAQ in 2011 (when it raised $1.3bn). “You either go global in one service which you feel good about, or you focus on one market and do it really well,” says Mr Volozh. Russia already has Europe’s largest base of internet users—some 87m people—yet penetration rates are low at 71%. Along with the space to grow, however, comes the risk that Yandex’s activities attract greater political scrutiny. President Vladimir Putin paid a visit on September 21st, around its 20th anniversary, having criticised the company in past years.
2011年，Yandex在纳斯达克上市，募集了资金13亿美元。不久，Yandex进军土耳其，以失败而告终。于是，该公司将重心放在了占其收入92%的俄罗斯国内市场。沃罗兹说：“要么凭借优势服务打入国际市场，要么专注于一个市场，把它做到极致。”俄罗斯的网络用户基数位居欧洲之首——约870万人，但是，互联网渗透率只有71%。随着比例的不断上升，Yandex的经营活动或将受到更为严厉的政治审查。在其成立20周年的时候，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京（Vladimir Putin）9月21日前往视察。普京在过去几年里曾指责过该公司。
Its early lead online came thanks to technology that responded to local needs. The Yandex search algorithm processed Russian language requests better than early versions of international competitors, for example. Mapping software that displayed real-time traffic proved immensely popular, especially among drivers on Moscow’s highly congested roads.
由于技术满足俄罗斯人的需求，Yandex很早就实现了在线业务的优势地位。例如，与国际竞争对手的早期版本相比，Yandex的搜索算法能更好地处理俄语查询请求。显示实时交通的地图软件大受欢迎，行驶在莫斯科最拥堵路段的司机们更是对它情有独钟。
There were also challenges. As Russia fell into recession in 2014, profits began tumbling; the depreciation of the rouble in late 2014 hit especially hard, as a large chunk of Yandex’s costs are in foreign currency. Google began eating away at its search business by dominating the fast-growing mobile market on Android devices. But as macroeconomic conditions have improved, investors crept back.
Yandex也曾面临挑战。2014年俄罗斯经济衰退，该公司利润也随之下滑；由于很大一部分成本是以外汇结算，在2014年下半年，卢布的贬值沉重地打击了Yandex。谷歌通过基于安卓设备而快速增长的移动市场占据了大部分市场份额，开始侵蚀Yandex的搜索业务。不过，随着俄罗斯宏观经济环境转好，投资者开始回归。
A victory against Google in a Russian antitrust court this year (the American firm must stop requiring Android phone makers to install its apps and services and instead offer Android users a choice of default search engine) as well as signs of successful diversification beyond search have pushed Yandex’s shares up by some 50% in the past year. Investors are particularly bullish on its taxi business. In July Yandex agreed a $3.7bn merger with Uber, which effectively ceded the Russian market after a costly price war. Yandex will take a controlling 59.3% stake in the new enterprise. A second joint venture is in the works with Sberbank, which aims to transform Yandex’s price-comparison platform into a fully-fledged e-commerce business.
今年，谷歌在一项俄罗斯反垄断诉讼中败诉（它必须停止要求安卓手机产商安装其应用和服务，同时要为用户提供默认搜索引擎选项），与此同时，Yandex不再囿于搜索引擎功能，成功实现功能的多样化。借此，Yandex的市场份额较去年上涨了约50%。投资者在其出租车业务上十分慷慨。在一场惨烈的价格战之后，Yandex在7月以37亿美元兼并了优步，让后者果断放弃了俄罗斯市场。Yandex在新公司拥有59.3%的控股股权。另一个合资则是与俄罗斯联邦储备银行的合作，要将原有的比价平台发展为成熟的电商业务。
Other initiatives support Yandex’s vision of itself as the hub of Russia’s digital economy. A new machine learning-powered virtual assistant, Alisa, aims to conquer the Russian-language sphere, where Amazon’s Alexa does not operate and Apple’s Siri can be spotty. An early version that used Russian literary classics as a training data set was scrapped because it was so depressing, says Mr Parakhin. “You had the feeling that after it stops talking it’ll go and commit suicide!” But a revamped model will launch in October, voiced by the actress who dubbed the Russian version of “Her” in Spike Jonze’s hit film.
其他一些投资项目则为Yandex未来发展成为俄罗斯数字经济的枢纽提供支持。拥有新式机器学习的虚拟助手Alisa计划攻克俄语领域。这是亚马逊的Alexa束手无策的领域，而苹果的Siri漏洞百出。帕拉欣（Parakhin）表示，以俄罗斯文学经典作为训练数据的早期版本因其效果不理想而遭淘汰。“你会感觉它话音一落，就会跑去自杀！“改进后的模型将于10月份推出，声音来自俄罗斯版电影《她》（斯派克·琼斯（Spike Jonze)的热门电影）的配音女演员。
As for politics, the firm has long trod a tightrope, drawing the Kremlin’s ire over its mobile-payment system, which opposition politicians have used for fundraising, and its popular news aggregator, which serves up stories based on an algorithm rather than the interests of the authorities. In 2014, as tensions between Russia and the West intensified over the annexation of Crimea, Mr Putin declared the internet a “CIA project” and singled out Yandex for being susceptible to foreign influence. The company’s stock promptly fell 5%.
对于政治，公司一直以来如履薄冰。俄罗斯政府对其移动支付系统和新闻聚合器多有不满，因为反对派政治人物利用前者筹集资金，而后者则依据算法而按当局喜好推送新闻报道。2014年，俄罗斯同西方世界在克里米亚归属问题上剑拔弩张，普京曾宣称互联网是”美国中央情报局项目“，提出Yandex受到了外国势力影响。该是公司股价因此骤跌5%。
Since then, Yandex has made overtures to the authorities. Its maps now show Crimea as part of Russia, for example. This spring, Alexei Navalny, leader of the opposition, accused Yandex of manipulating news results to exclude mention of mass protests he led (Yandex has denied the charges). On his visit to the firm, Mr Putin watched a demonstration of Yandex’s self-driving car and chatted with Alisa. Inside Yandex’s glass-walled offices, among its talented young employees, Russia’s future must have looked bright.
自此，Yandex开始主动向当局示好。例如，Yandex地图显示克里米亚是俄罗斯的一部分。今年春天，反对党领导人阿列克谢·纳瓦尔内（Alexei Navalny）指责Yandex操纵新闻搜索结果，屏蔽其领导的大规模抗议活动（Yandex对此予以否认）。普京在视察Yandex公司时，观看了自驾车的演示，并与Alisa聊天。那时，在Yandex用玻璃隔起来的办公室里，在才华横溢的年轻员工们之中，俄罗斯的未来势必一片光明。
编译：程馨莹
审校：黄敏华
编辑：翻吧君
来源：经济学人