Mail.ru Group combines Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ

Photo: E. Reasonable / Vedomosti

Mail.ru Group plans to merge both of its messengers, leaving them to work under the ICQ brand. The reason is the high competitiveness of the instant messengers market, and the lack of sense to spend money on promoting similar products.

Madina Tayupova, a representative of Mail.ru Group, argues that the process of merging instant messengers has been going on for a long time, while users of both platforms can interact with each other, for example, add each other as friends, exchange messages, files and stickers.

It should be noted that the company Mail.ru Group launched the technical process of merging messengers in 2011, exactly one year after the acquisition of ICQ. At the same time, the company has announced the “Agent Mail.ru” main platform. Now, the strategy of promoting instant messengers has changed: the company plans to develop both platforms as a single product.
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Now it is not known when the merging process will be completed, and ICQ will become a single brand for both platforms. At the same time, there will be no forced transfer from one messenger to another. The "Agent Mail.ru" itself has been developed in the company since 2003.



ICQ Messenger was purchased from the American company AOL for $ 187.5 million in 2010. In May 2015, according to Mail.ru Group, the ICQ subscriber base is 11 million users per month. Agent has 18.8 million monthly users.