ComScore's Latest Move Signals Russia's Market Promise

The Russian market looks good to comScore. As part of the measurement firm’s global expansion, its presence in Russia has grown significantly.

Last week, comScore announced it has more than doubled the number of sites it reports on globally, and has added more advanced and granular reporting services to its enhanced reporting offering.

As a result of the expansion, the firm can now report on 45 percent more properties in the U.S., 95 percent more in China, and 125 percent more in Britain.

The most notable increase, however, comes from the Russian market, which experienced a 244 percent growth in the number of site tracked.

“One of the reasons we introduced this enhanced reporting was to improve reporting in developing markets. So in that sense, it is an implicit acknowledgement of the growing importance of these regions,” said Andrew Lipsman, comScore’s senior manager for Industry Analysis. “Russia is one of many increasingly important Internet markets,” he added.

According to Lipsman, a measurement rule was applied uniformly across all markets when evaluating which sites to report. As a result, these numbers act as further evidence of Russia’s booming online economy.

ComScore reported in August that Russia now has the fastest growing online population in Europe, rising 27 percent year-on-year between ’07 and ’08. What’s more, it estimates that only 14 percent of the population are currently online, suggesting growth will continue.

In its 2008 forecasts, Carat predicted Russia will experience more ad spend growth than any other European market this year, up 23 percent over 2007, and following a 27 percent growth in ’07.

As a result of the region’s speedy expansion, a number of major digital ad players have snapped up Russian properties over the past 12 months, including WPP, Aegis and Google.

Aegis in June said it was purchasing AdWatch, a full service digital agency. WPP was hot on Aegis’ heels, buying a majority stake in Alite Ltd in July; Alite is a digital agency that trades under the name of Actis and provides online marketing strategy, design and development for clients throughout Eastern Europe. In addition, WPP purchased Czech ad services company Advertures in July, citing a goal of growing its offering in fast developing regions.

Perhaps most significantly however, Google in July said that it was acquiring Russian contextual ad network Begun for a fee of $140 million. Speaking with ClickZ News at the time, a Google spokesperson said, “We consider Russia an important country and are committed to it.”

Other regions that experienced substantial growth in ComScore’s reportable data include South Korea with a 234 percent increase and Australia with a 183 percent increase. The Netherlands, France, Italy, Canada, and Spain all experienced growth ranging from 130 percent to 180 percent.

The enhanced reporting will initially be available in markets outside of the U.S., with U.S. and global regions being made available within weeks.