Yandex. Taxi service began operating on Monday in Israel under the new Yango brand, Director of Yandex.Taxi international business development Olga Nikitushkina told TASS.

"Today at 11:00 (12:00 Moscow time) we launched our Yango service in Israel, it will work in the Gush Dan zone, in the coastal regions of the country - in Haifa, Ashkelon and Ashdod," she said.

"We hope to eventually occupy the leading position in Israel. Tourists from Russia will be able to use our service in Israel through the Yandex.Taxi app," Nikitushkina added.

Regional General manager of Yandex.Taxi in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Aram Sargsyan said at a press briefing on Monday that the Yango application for Israel has been available for several weeks in the AppStore and Google Play in Hebrew, Russian and other languages. It is fully compatible with Yandex.Taxi app. "We are bringing our technologies to Israel, including cartography and monitoring service. We hope that this will significantly improve the level of service," he added, noting that during peak hours and weekends in Israel it is almost impossible to get a taxi online due to insufficient offers on the market. According to Sargsyan, the company intends to add Jerusalem to its service in the near future.

In early November, Yandex.Taxi launched an online taxi service in Finland’s Helsinki also under the new brand Yango and announced testing the brand’s Abidjan, the capital of Cote d'Ivoire. Yandex.Taxi started working in March 2018 in Latvia. Before that, it was not available to users in any country of the European Union. Since May, Yandex.Taxi began operating in Estonia, in June it entered the Serbian market, in July - Lithuania.