Russian Companies Poised to Acquire ICQ

April 6, 2010

ICQ might become Russian. Its owners AOL have collected binding offers to purchase ICQ, filed by Russian companies Digital Sky Technologies (DST) and Prof-Media and the Chinese company Tencent.

According to a source close to Prof-Media, the holding offered about $120 million for a 100 percent stake. DST offered more, another Vedomosti source said.

Several other Russian companies — mobile operators and Yandex — were invited to submit offers for ICQ, sources close to the organizers of the transaction and the companies told Vedomosti, but they declined.

The instant messenger ICQ has officially revealed the size of its Russian audience for the first time, about 18.5 million users a month. Every month about 42 million people across the world chat on ICQ, said ICQ managing director Eliav Moshe, meaning that Russia accounted for 44 percent of the whole audience.

ICQ’s main earnings come from banners and contextual advertising in search results.

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