Leading Russian dating site “Mamba” has changed its international name to Wamba to expand into new markets.
“In Russia we can only grow as fast as the market”, explained Executive Director Yaroslav Sergeev, “so we are targeting two new growth areas – mobile Internet and international expansion.”
Sergeev added that in many countries the “mamba” domain is already taken by Storck, a producer of chewy sweets, so “Mamba” had to create a new brand for the international market. It has already bought up wamba.com, wamba.in and wamba.ru, among others, and its site is available in 10 languages.
India is first on Wamba’s target list – at the moment there isn’t a freemium social dating site (which offers basic services for free, with the option of paying for additional options). Wamba then hopes to expand in Brazil, South Africa and Turkey.
In Russia Mamba and Wamba will operate alongside one another. After the rebranding the old site will become “like a partner” of the new resource.
Mamba, founded in 2002, currently has 12 million users. Although its international version was launched in 2003, until now the majority of users have been in the CIS countries. It has about 2.5 million unique daily users. 30% of the company belongs to the Mail.ru Group, with the other 70% held by investment company Finam.
