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Mail.Ru Group (London Stock Exchange listed since November 5, 2010) 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, according to comScore, websites owned by Mail.ru collectively had the largest audience in Russia and captured the most screen time.〔comScore. (Which Sites Capture The Most Screen Time in Russia? )〕 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 Moy Mir, respectively.〔comScore. (Russians Spend over 6 hours a Month on Odnoklassniki )〕 Mail.ru holds 100% of shares of Russia's most popular social network VKontakte 〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/16/russia-mailru-group-vkontakte-idUSL6N0RH28K20140916 )〕 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. ==History== 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. In 2003, Milner resigned from Mail.ru and subsequently set up another internet venture, Digital Sky Technologies (DST).〔(Digital Sky Technologies ("DST") Changes Name to Mail.ru Group )〕 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. Dmitry Grishin became one of the Mail.ru Group co-founders. 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. 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. In March 2012, Yuri Milner has stepped down from the role of Chairman of Mail.ru and from the Board of Directors. Dmitry Grishin was elected to the Board of Directors and appointed as Chairman of the Board while retaining his CEO position. There were no other changes to management or to the Board. In November 2012, it was reported that Mail.Ru disclaims search services Google.〔(Mail.Ru откажется от поисковых услуг Google ) // Vesti.ru 〕 Full migration into own engine has occurred in the summer of 2013.〔(Jennifer Slegg: Russia's Mail.Ru Drops Google Search, Launches Own Search Engine ) // searchenginewatch.com, July 3, 2013〕 In autumn 2012, it became known for buying two-letter domain My.com by Mail.ru Group. This was taken as a statement of the plans of conquering world markets and the upcoming re-branding of services under this name.〔(Mail.ru пойдет за рубеж с новым именем ) // dp.ru, October 30, 2012 〕 In the end of 2012, Mail.ru Group bought Ukrainian email service mail.ua, and 23 April 2013 was opened registration email in this domain. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mail.Ru」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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