RuNet, the Russian segment of the World Wide Web, will see its market volume expand by 30 percent in 2012 to 720 billion rubles ($23 billion), according to a survey presented on Wednesday.

Online retail remains RuNet’s largest market and is expected to expand by 27 percent to 393 billion rubles, according to the survey, RuNet Economics 2011-2012, presented by the Russian Association of Electronic Communications and the Higher School of Economics.

One characteristic of Russia's online retail is the absence of big players with large market share: the market leader Ozon holds only about 2-3 percent of the market.

Electronic payments are RuNet’s second biggest segment. They are expected to grow by 34 percent to 220 billion rubles in 2012. Experts attribute the market’s expansion to the government’s plans to minimize the share of cash in settlements, the public’s growing awareness of electronic payments and the penetration of these technologies into offline business.

Video advertising will become RuNet’s most rapidly developing market in 2012, with this segment expected to grow by 59 percent to 1.27 billion rubles.

RuNet’s context advertising, the most rapidly growing segment in 2011 along with video advertising, will expand by 39 percent to 33.7 billion rubles in 2012, a slowdown by 14 percent compared with last year. The customers’ increased requirements will stimulate competition and the emergence of new kinds of services in this segment and help it expand further, the report said.

The media advertising market will slow its growth from 41 percent in 2011 to 33 percent in 2012 and amount to 21.05 billion rubles. The Russian ATL advertising market lags behind leading foreign markets in this sphere due to underdeveloped technologies and media-planning.

In 2011, the capacity of RuNet content and services, and also internet-dependent markets (access to the network, electronic trading and on-line investment) hit 2.52 trillion rubles or 4.62 percent of Russia’s GDP that year, the survey showed.

A survey published by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in March said the share of internet business in Russia is expected to reach 2.8 percent of the country’s GDP by 2016 compared with 1.9 percent in 2010.