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By Alexander Marrow and Gleb Stolyarov
(Reuters) -Russian tech giant Yandex reported a 27% fall in second-quarter profits on Thursday as costs rose from a year earlier when the company tightened spending in the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Often dubbed "Russia's Google", Yandex has struggled to balance domestic pressures with the interests of its Western investors since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Yandex's adjusted net income dropped to 9.6 billion roubles ($106.8 million) while its adjusted earnings before income, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 4% to 24.7 billion roubles.
"The decline was expected and is due to the fact that the second quarter of 2022 was an 'anomaly' for the whole market," Yandex said, referring to the year-earlier period.
"A year ago, Yandex had strong EBITDA due to a very low base of costs. The company froze hiring, cut part of its marketing budgets and was generally stricter on cost control."
Yandex spent 18.4 billion roubles in the quarter, almost 140% more than a year earlier, it said in a presentation, and notably higher than its average quarterly spend in 2022 or 2021.