CEOs’ Opinions & Prognoses

Everything was very positive in the first eight months of the outgoing year. However, the negative trends in the past few months have drastically changed people’s opinions about the contemporary world. Now, everyone has understood that this crisis is not a remote, hypothetic event that might never happen, but a stark reality. As a result, this has affected people’s approaches to work in risk-related businesses and personal developments. 

Company’s achievements in 2008

"I think 2009 is going to be a year of great uncertainties. It is unlikely that the coming year will be a period of intense growth. Quite the contrary, it will be a year of regular sequences of short-term surges and recessions." 

First of all, our company celebrated its 10th foundation anniversary this year, a big landmark event for us. In 2008, Mail.Ru did not only keep its status as the leading communications portal, but also became the largest website in the ru.net segment of the Internet for the first time, in terms of number of visitors. The company grew actively, with the number of employees rising from 300 to 400, while the regional expansion continued with the opening of offices in Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk and Samara. Also, it launched new projects and services and improved the existing services, developed a new antispam system for its free email service. The number of users of the social network, MyWorld@Mail.Ru, first exceeded 10mln and later 25mln, also for the first time, in the ru.net segment. It launched several new versions of the Mail.Ru Agent instant messenger. We also bought Smape, a subsidiary of Smaper, a popular ICQ client for mobile platforms, and Smape.ru, a popular web resource for telecommunications. This base was used for the launch of Mobile@Mail.Ru. 

Company’s plans for 2009

As for our plans, we usually do not like talking about them. But, in general, I can say that Mail.Ru will focus on communications, and that we shall spare no efforts to preserve our status as the leading communications portal on the Russian Internet. Also, new services will be launched, while the existing ones will be regularly improved. We shall continue our regional expansion. Another important objective is to preserve the highest profitability rate, for instance, the company’s EBITDA rate was of 64.5% in 2007. 

Forecasts for Russian economy in 2009 

I think 2009 is going to be a year of great uncertainties. It is unlikely that the coming year will be a period of intense growth. Quite the contrary, it will be a year of regular sequences of short-term surges and recessions. All people and different economies will be getting used to the new realities and will be searching for ways to overcome the crisis.