LONDON (ShareCast) - Russian Internet firm Rambler Media toasted the resilience of the Russian advertising market as revenues shot up at the half-year stage.

Consolidated revenue, which includes Begun, the company it took control of in August 2007, rose 153% to $52m from $20.5m in the first half of 2007.

Like-for-like sales rose 73% to $35.4m.

Consolidated contextual revenue rose to $23.5m from $4.3m, while paid search revenues on the Rambler network went up by 62% to $6.9m from $4.3m.

The Begun network contributed $16.6m to consolidated revenue, excluding inter-company sales.

Rambler said it has left its full year revenue guidance for 2008 unchanged at $100m to $110m.

Consolidated EBITDA margin continued to rise, and was in the region of 18% to 20%, versus 3% a year earlier.

The number of unique visitors to the search portal, www.rambler.ru, soared 30% to an average of 37.3m per month, compared with 28.6m in the first half of 2007.

• News Channel