East-West Digital News 11 April 2012
The 2011 valuation of Avito.ru, Russia’s leading classifieds site by brand awareness and number of users, amounted to $158.73 million, according the annual report issued by minority shareholder Vostok Nafta earlier this month.
Based on a transaction that took place in mid-2011, the figure marks a 2.5-fold increase from the valuation of the previous year, $66 million, but still stands far from the $1 billion target mentioned in the fund’s report last year.
In December 2011 Avito recorded 3 million new listings, the report indicates — compared to about 1 million for the same month 2010. Unique monthly visitors are currently in excess of 20 million and monthly page views are at almost 2 billion, “figures which rank well anywhere in the world,” Vostok Nafta Managing Director Per Brilioth noted.