Last week, Russia’s second most popular social network, Odnoklassniki.ru (Russian for “Classmates”), owned by Mail.Ru Group, launched an English language version. This is the social network’s 10th language option in addition to Russian. At present, Odnoklassniki is translated into English, Moldavian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Ukrainian, Armenian, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Tajik.
In an official announcement, Odnoklassniki CEO Ilya Shirokov said that about 3 million users from non-CIS states visit the website every day, which accounts for 7.6% of the social network’s total traffic.
The launch of the English language version of Odnoklassniki came later than expected since the decision to “soon” introduce this version was made one year ago.
This move can be seen as a part of the rising international ambitions of the Mail.Ru Group, the Russian LSE-listed Internet giant that owns Odnoklassniki. In November 2012, the group announced its new brand My.com aimed at foreign markets and stated its intentions to expand beyond the boundaries of the CIS.
One of the group’s core properties – the email service and portal Mail.ru – is already available in English and Spanish, as well as in Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Armenian.
