- Mail.ru
-
Mail.ru Type Public corporation (LSE: MAIL) Founded 1998 Headquarters Russia Key people Dmitry Grishin Industry Internet information providers Products Internet services (electronic mail, search engine, website catalogue, instant messaging, blogging, information, answers service) Owner Digital Sky Technologies Slogan Национальная почтовая служба
(National post service)Website mail.ru Alexa rank 33 (November 2011[update])[1] Type of site web portal Advertising yes Available in Russian Launched 15 October 1998[2] Current status active Mail.ru is the largest free e-mail service of the Runet. 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 was forced to seek merger partners.
In 2001 Yuri Milner, who was 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.
The company started to operate under its present name on 16 October 2001. Before that time its brand name was owned by Port.ru. It is headed by Dmitry Grishin. As of 2009, its global Alexa rating is 29.[3]
In 2003, Milner resigned from Mail.ru and subsequently set up another internet venture, Digital Sky Technologies (DST).[4] In 2006, Igor Linshits sold his stake in Mail.ru to Tiger Fund and Milner's DST for more than $100 million. In September 2010, DST changed its name to Mail.ru Group .[5]
In October 2010, Mail.ru announced plans for an IPO via the London stock market listing of a subsidiary – also called Mail.ru – worth more than $5bn.[6] The IPO will offer a stake of about 17% of the subsidiary. The subsidiary will include about a quarter of the group’s shareholding in Facebook, stakes in Russia’s two biggest social networking sites and Mail.ru. The company has hired Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and VTB Capital to run the listing.
Contents
Statistics
- According to Alexa data for June 2007[update], Mail.ru was the most popular Russian site on the web.[7]
- In 2005 there were more than 30 million users with 25 million emails a day.
- By the end of 2006 it was announced that a strategic agreement with Yandex was achieved about the use of a Yandex search engine instead of Google.
- In January 2007 30% shares of Mail.ru were bought by South African company Naspers for $165 million.[8]
- It is reported by Grishin that the two other shareholders are the Digital Sky Technologies (DST) and Tiger Global Management (TGM).
Main Services
- Poisk.mail.ru — Social search engine.
- Otvet.mail.ru — Questions and answers.
- Blog.mail.ru — Blogs.
- Foto.mail.ru — Image hosting.
- Video.mail.ru — Video hosting.
- Files.mail.ru — File hosting service.
- Games.mail.ru — Online games.
- My.mail.ru — Social network.
- Mail.ru Agent — Instant messaging client.
References
- ^ "Mail.ru Site Info". Alexa Internet. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/Mail.ru. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ "Mail.Ru празднует 10-летие" (in ru). Archived from the original on 2010-08-27. http://www.webcitation.org/5sHcGuWQg.
- ^ www.alexa.com
- ^ Digital Sky Technologies ("DST") Changes Name to Mail.ru Group
- ^ Testing Russian charm in the City
- ^ Investors offered a slice of Facebook
- ^ www.alexa.com
- ^ "African Naspers buys 30% stake in one of Russia’s biggest internet portals". C-News. 2007-01-24. http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2007/01/24/232569. Retrieved 2007-06-05.
External links
- (Russian) Mail.ru Portal
- (English) Alexa stats for mail.ru
Categories:- Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
- Email websites
- Internet companies of Russia
- Russian websites
- Internet in Russia
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.