Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, released their first quarter financial results for 2012 today, and so far, things are looking really good. Revenue is up over 50% from last year in the same quarter to $200.3 million. Income from operation is also up almost 23% when compared to last year.

Their net income came in at almost $43 million, which is a staggering 53% increase from last year. That’s really impressive. While it seems like almost all aspects of the business did better than they did last year, there are many factors that came into play.

The number of advertisers on the search jumped 40% to almost 180,000. Average daily visitor grew from 200,000 in January to almost double by the end of March. They implemented real time bidding and partnered with Twitter on search results. Most importantly they launched the Yandex navigator on iOS and Android.

Arkady Volozh, Chief Executive Officer of Yandex comments on the results of the quarter:

“Yandex drove another strong quarter of robust growth, highlighted by particularly strong contextual advertising results as well as ongoing market and search share leadership,”

“We continued to focus on our core search product, emphasizing the integration of social media and improving the freshness of our search results to enhance user experience. We launched important new map-based services and are developing Yandex’s presence across the entire spectrum of mobile devices.”

Currently Yandex controls almost 69% of the Russian search market, but their recent development with online advertising and the addition of mobile search capabilities, they are growing fast. Investors should keep a close eye on this company as 2012 unfolds.