Uber Walks Away From Russian Market, Partners With Yandex Instead

Uber Technologies Inc. made the decision in late 2016 to exit the Chinese market and now the popular ride-hailing platform will be partially exiting the Russian market.

Uber will merge its Russian operations with Russia-based Yandex NV YNDX and from a yet-to-be-named venture that would be worth $3.73 billion, Bloomberg reported. In turn, Uber will invest $225 million in the new venture and will own a 36.6-percent stake in the combined entity.

The announcement contributed to a surge of 20 percent in Yandex's Nasdaq-listed stock ahead of Thursday's market open. The Russian-listed stock gained more than 22 percent during its regular trading session on Thursday.

The combination of Uber and Yandex's ridesharing platforms will handle 35 million rides a month and will also operate in Eastern European countries such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia.

Uber's decision to exit the Russian market is also adding to ongoing concerns among the company's shareholders, Bloomberg added. The company remains unprofitable and investors may want the company to cut its losses in some of these markets and implement similar deals as has been done in Russia and China as the company remains unprofitable. Uber's losses in the first three months of 2017 totaled $708 million which does mark an improvement from the $991 million loss the company reported in the prior quarter.

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