MOSCOW- Russian internet giant Yandex on Tuesday reported a 55% drop in adjusted net profit last year, but said it expects total group revenues to continue their upward trajectory this year to 490 billion-500 billion roubles ($6.50 billion-$6.63 billion).

Yandex's adjusted net income stood at 8 billion roubles in 2021, down 55% on a like-for-like basis including its Yandex.Market e-commerce venture.

The company said annual profit was hit by investments in high-growth segments of the business, such as e-commerce and media services.

Yandex's core advertising business, which accounted for 47% of total revenue in the fourth quarter, took a hit during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, but surging interest in online transactions allowed its other businesses to flourish.

The group expects its total e-commerce gross merchandise volume (GMV) to double in 2022, while GMV in its taxi segment, which includes ride-hailing and car-sharing, should reach 700 billion-720 billion roubles in 2022.

Total revenues were 54% higher in the fourth quarter and rose by the same amount over the full year to 356.2 billion roubles, above company guidance of 340 billion-350 billion roubles.

Revenues in the taxi segment rose 93% in the final quarter to 42.9 billion roubles. Search and portal revenues were up 31% in the same period, during which time the company's search market share in Russia averaged 60.2%, Yandex said.

It expects growth of 15-18% in 2022.

Yandex's results were strong, said BCS Global Markets, mainly on solid results in search and ride-hailing. "Key questions remain in e-commerce losses," BCS said.

Yandex.Market registered a full-year loss of 40.5 billion roubles in adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA).

Yandex shares were up 7.5% as of 1219 GMT on the Moscow Exchange, outperforming the wider market, which was up around 3.1% .

($1 = 75.4250 roubles)

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Katya Golubkova and Jan Harvey) ((alexander.marrow@thomsonreuters.com))