Today Mail.Ru Group, a leading Russian Internet group listed on the London stock exchange, provided preliminary unaudited financial information and key operating highlights for 2016.
The group’s main financial results on a pro-forma basis are as follows:
- In 2016, the group’s aggregate segment revenue grew 14.8% year-on-year to 42.75 billion rubles (nearly $642 million at the average exchange rate);
- The group’s aggregate segment EBITDA (including non-cash one time exceptional tax charge of 768 million) decreased 1.0% to 17.91 billion rubles. Ex this tax charge EBITDA increased 3.3% to 18.68 billion (nearly $281 million);
- Mail.Ru Group’s aggregate net profit (including non-cash one time exceptional tax charge of 1.022 billion) grew 18.0% to 11.616 billion. Ex this tax charge net profit increased 28.4% to 12.64 billion (nearly $190 million);
- As of 31 December 2016, the net cash position was 5.39 billion rubles (nearly $81 million).
Mail.Ru Group’s revenue details (in million rubles)
In terms of traffic:
- With 77.7 million monthly active users above 5 years of age in Russia in December 2016 (comScore MMX Multi-Platform), Mail.Ru Group is the leading online property in Russia;
- The group’s social network Vkontakte reached 95 million monthly active users globally in December 2016 (internal data).
The group cites the following significant moves in 2016:
- Mail.Ru Group acquired 100% of Delivery Club, the number one online food delivery company in Russia;
- The group also acquired mobile game company Pixonic;
- Launch of ride-sharing service BeepCar (on iOS, Android and web);
- Mobile marketplace Youla was updated with a new listing algorithm, similar product suggestions, user ranking and subscriptions to sellers. Youla reached 2 million daily and 9.6 million monthly active users;
- Mail.Ru for Business relaunched as a platform with all our B2B services;
- Launch of Cloud for Business, a B2B service offering solutions for cold and hot data storage and storage for team collaboration;
- Mail.Ru email service introduced option to schedule email sending;
- Cloud.Mail.Ru apps for iOS and Android were updated with photo & video gallery and paid plans optimized for media files storage.
Regarding the group’s social networks Vkontakte (VK) and Odnklassniki (OK):
- Launch of VK Live, a mobile app for live video streaming, and video streaming directly in VK newsfeed with comments and donations (gifts, stickers)
- VK also introduced Stories, a feature that lets users instantly share photos and videos that are live for 24 hours (available on iOS and Android);
- VK offered groups and public pages an extended API to create embedded applications for surveys, chats, donations, selling tickets, bookings, etc.;
- OK newsfeed now displays posts your friends commented on and attaches friends’ avatars to their likes;
- Stream enhancements (animated filters, masks, paintings by streamers), top streamers feed and stream statistics in OK Live app.
In the field of games:
- Mail.Ru Group acquired license to operate Warface in North America and Europe;
- Launch of MMORPG Revelation Online in Russia;
- Soft launch of mobile MOBA game Planet of Heroes on iOS;
- New content and improved team play UI in War Robots;
As for the group’s advertising offer:
- CPI optimization strategies in myTarget now available for all clients;
- Rollout of newsfeed video ad format (cross-device on desktop and mobile);
- myTarget mobile advertising network now serves ads to 82m MAUs from over 2,600 third-party apps (in addition to the Group’s own projects).
Topics:
Company results, Finance, Internet, News
