12 Oct 2021 09:15
12th October 2021
MAIL.RU GROUP LIMITED
Rebranding of Mail.ru Group into VK
MAIL.RU GROUP LIMITED (LSE and MICEX-RTS: "MAIL") ("Mail.ru Group", "VK" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the rebranding of the Group into VK.
The rebranding event comes as a natural progress of the ecosystem development strategy of the Group, announced in 2020 where the social network VKontakte was positioned as the central element. The VK brand has 100% awareness among the domestic Internet audience, and VKontakte is used by nearly 70% of domestic Internet users on a daily basis.
Following the launch of the ecosystem development strategy, we have made significant progress, with active rollout of various core ecosystem elements, such as VK ID, VK Combo, VK Mini Apps or VK Pay, all launched under the "VK" brand. Having conducted extensive brand analysis over the past 14 months together with Saffron Brand Consultants, and with multiple experiments completed around the test rebranding of products and units in association with VK (e.g. VK Classifieds, VK Rabota), we see clear positive effects the "VK" brand has on awareness and usage, which we want to scale across the Group. Furthermore, the rebranding seeks to maximise association of our nearly 200 products with the broader Group. Through rebranding, we also seek to ensure the transition to an even deeper internal culture of collaboration, sharing and exchange of ideas, scaling successes internally, avoidance of any duplication of efforts and internal competition in our ultimate goal to create unifying technologies for all people.
All new internal products will be launched under the "VK" brand, with decisions around the branding of acquired services, partially owned services or services focused on international markets to be made by the internal Branding Committee, based on analytics and best outcome for the Group and all our stakeholders.
The rebranding will not impact the operational structure of the business, accounting or presentation of our results. Legal entity name and ticker are expected to be amended, but with no immediate effect. The Company will update on these items in due course.
Given the importance of the rebranding event for the Group, we invite you to view the presentation on its rationale, initial positive effects and near-term plans from Boris Dobrodeev, CEO of VK (Russia), which can be accessed using the following link: https://vk.com/video-35005_456239289?list=4501978964f2fe22b8
For further information please contact:
Investors
Tatiana Volochkovich
Phone: +7 495 725 6357 extension: 3434
Mobile: +7 905 594 6604
E-mail: t.volochkovich@corp.mail.ru
Press
Sergei LuchinMobile: +7 (915) 223 35 71E-mail: s.luchin@corp.mail.ru
About VK
VK develops the ecosystem helping millions of people with their day-to-day needs online. More than 90% of the Russian internet audience use the ecosystem services.
The ecosystem enables people to keep in touch (using social networks OK and VK, messaging apps and email service), play video games (via MY.GAMES), get and offer items and services, browse jobs and hire talent (via Youla and VK Jobs), order food and grocery delivery (via Delivery Club, Samokat and Local Kitchen), get a ride (with Citymobil and Citydrive), master new skills (at GeekBrains, Skillbox and other educational services), buy and sell at AliExpress Russia and fulfill other needs.
The VK ecosystem features a number of shared elements bringing the services together. Users can sign in to different services with a single VK ID account, pay and earn cash back with the VK Pay platform, get discounts and deals with VK Combo, access their favorite services via the VK Mini Apps platform - and the Marusya voice assistant can help with any task.
The company offers enterprises to employ its dynamic ecosystem to digitize their business processes, providing a range of solutions from online promotion and predictive analytics to corporate social networks, cloud services and enterprise automation.