In a move to enhance its international traction, the Russian webmail service Mail.ru has launched a Spanish language interface. The news was announced last week, although the interface had been made available in mid-December.
Last year a report by ComScore revealed that Mail.ru, which then attracted over 42 million unique users monthly, was among the four leading webmail services in Europe.
Given its rapid growth, the Russian service could well become number three this year, outrunning Yahoo’s mail service.
In an exchange with East-West Digital News, Mail.ru Group did not reveal any particular plans to develop in Spanish language countries. “Our services are used by millions of people around the world, and we localize them where our audience is,” said Alexey Katkov, the group’s VP for international development.
Katkov declined to comment on the company’s plans for further development in new languages.
Before adding Spanish, Mail.ru had been available in many of the main languages of the former Soviet Union – including Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Kazakhstani, Uzbek and Armenian – as well as in English.
Among other properties of the Mail.ru Group, Odnoklassniki.ru, a major social network, has also been made available in several languages of the former USSR. An English language version has been announced but not launched to date.
ICQ, which the group acquired from AOL in 2010, is available in English, German, Czech, Portuguese and Russian.
Allods, a successful online game of Mail.ru Group, has been localized in Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Turkish, in addition to the Russian version.
