Mail.Ru Issues Gangbusters Trading Figures, Plans More Social Games

Mail.Ru has issued a preliminary trading statement for the fiscal year 2011. The largest Russian-language Internet company, is looking at a margin outlook of 50 percent this year according to CEO Dmitry Grishin, speaking on a conference call, and plans to reinvest the cash to improve its products. Net income in the second half of 2011 almost tripled year on year to $122.9 million. Shares were up on the news.

Mail.ru has seen stronger advertising revenue than it expected in the fourth quarter and plans to focus on higher quality products with its online game business.

In terms of numbers, the monthly audience of the Mail.Ru portal in December 2011 (according to TNS Russia) reached 30 million Russian users. They had continued growth in social networking and instant messaging with the social network Odnoklassniki reaching 20.8m monthly users (TNS Russia) and Mail.ru Agent, it’s IM network, hitting 22.9m monthly users. In the last year Mail.ru’s web-interface for its email was revamped and improved and they issued updates and releases of desktop and mobile client apps (iOS, Android, WP7, Java, Symbian, Blackberry) of Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ.

The Games.mail.ru portal is now the the largest MMO gaming portal in the “Runet” (shorthand for the “Russian Internet”) and it launched 16 new games launched, including more social and mobile games.

Grishin said interoperability between Agent and ICQ was introduced, as was support for authorization between other instant messengers and social networks.

About 43% of Mail.Ru Agent monthly users are accessing the service from their mobile devices, as well as 34% of their OK monthly users. In fact the mobile user growth is exceeding PC use, not unexpectedly.