Mail.Ru
 |
|
| Type of business | Public corporation |
|---|---|
|
Type of site
|
web portal |
| Available in | Russian |
| Traded as | : |
| Founded | September 17, 1999 |
| Headquarters | Moscow, Russia |
| Key people | Dmitry Grishin, Yuri Milner |
| Industry | Internet information providers |
| Products | Internet services (electronic mail, search engine, website catalogue, file hosting service, instant messaging, blogging, information, answers service) |
| Services | Email & portal, Social networks, Instant messaging, Online games, Search & e-commerce |
| Revenue |
 36.316 billion rub. (2015) |
| Employees | 3,000 |
| Subsidiaries |
VK My.com ICQ OK.ru |
| Website | mail |
| Alexa rank |
 31 (January 2016[update]) |
| Advertising | yes |
| Launched | 15 October 1998 |
| Current status | active |
Mail.Ru Group, ООО (commonly referred to as Mail.Ru) is a Russian Internet company. It was started in 1998 as an e-mail service and went on to become a major corporate figure in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. As of 2013[update] according to comScore, websites owned by Mail.ru collectively had the largest audience in Russia and captured the most screen time. Mail.Ru's sites reach approximately 86% of Russian Internet users on a monthly basis and the company is in the top 5 of largest Internet companies, based on the number of total pages viewed. Mail.ru controls the 3 largest Russian social networking sites. It operates the second and third most popular Russian social networking sites, Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir, respectively. Mail.ru holds 100% of shares of Russia's most popular social network VKontakte and minority stakes in Qiwi, formerly OE Investments (15.04%). It also operates two instant messaging networks (Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ), an e-mail service and Internet portal Mail.ru, as well as a number of online games.
The business was originally owned by Port.ru, a company founded in 1998 by Eugene Goland, Michael Zaitsev and Alexey Krivenkov as spin-off from DataArt. It received an initial investment of USD 1 million from the well-known investor (and fencing champion) James Melcher.
The Mail.ru business expanded rapidly to reach the No. 1 market position in Russia by 2000. Attempts to fund the company's expansion in 2000-2001 were thwarted by the collapse of the technology bubble and Mail.ru had to seek merger partners.
In 2001 Yuri Milner, then managing NetBridge (the owner of less popular internet brands) persuaded the well-known entrepreneur Igor Linshits to back a merger of the Mail.ru business with NetBridge. Igor Linshits subsequently took an active role in the development of the Mail.ru business. In connection with the merger, Milner became Mail.ru CEO.
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