OREANDA-NEWS  Yandex is testing in Israel and will present its own electric scooter on December 15, Vedomosti writes, citing sources.

The scooter for the company was developed by the manufacturer of electric scooters Wind, about the purchase of which Yandex reported in the fall of 2021, a representative of Yandex clarified to the publication. A source close to one of the Russian kicksharing services estimates the cost of this development at $10-15 million, while the cost of production may vary depending on the partner plant, materials and batch sizes of the scooters ordered.

Scooters will be produced at partner factories in China. According to the source of Vedomosti, the presentation of the device will take place at the Yandex Yet another Conference on December 15.

According to the representative of the company, the development of Yandex differs from other scooters by a number of safety options, its specifics take into account urban conditions in Russia. The exact characteristics, as well as the cost of development in Yandex, do not lead.

A source in the company told the publication that Yandex expects to quadruple its fleet of scooters by spring - from 20 thousand units to 70 thousand. Up to 70% of the park is planned to be formed from Yandex's own scooters. In addition, the company expects to enter Kazakhstan, as well as increase the number of Russian cities where the electric scooter rental service operates. Among the possible cities where the service is planned to be launched are Yekaterinburg and Kazan. Now the Yandex service operates in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tula and Krasnodar.

According to the analytical company B1 (formerly EY), the largest players in the kicksharing market (rental of electric scooters) are Urent and Whoosh (about 80 thousand scooters each). This segment of the market in Russia is growing much faster than the global one. In 2019-2021, it has grown more than 6 times, according to the B1 study. According to experts, in 2025-2026, the revenue of kicksharing market players will grow by an average of 60% per year and reach 95.7 billion rubles. The dynamics is explained by the growth in the number of users and trips. According to the B1 forecast, the number of active users will almost triple from 10 million people in 2021 to 28 million in 2024, and in 2026 it will reach 34 million people.

The largest kicksharing service Whoosh (occupies 46% of the Russian market by revenue), which plans to hold an IPO on Mosbirzh on Wednesday, is also developing its own scooter model, the company's top managers said. The company, among other things, plans to use the funds raised as part of the IPO to expand the scooter fleet, planning to add about 40 thousand more devices to 81.8 thousand by the end of September.