Russian Internet titan Mail.ru targets US

Russian Internet titan Mail.ru hit the US market with email, text messaging and gaming applications for mobile devices.

The company set up offices in Silicon Valley in the form of a US subsidiary called My.Com and announced "apps" tailored for smartphones or tablets powered by Apple or Android software.

"Although our office is located in Silicon Valley, many of us work in Moscow at Mail.Ru Group where we are the largest Internet company in Russian-speaking countries," the company said in a blog post.

"We have a worldwide community of more than 100 million fans who use our services every month and this has given us tons of experience in communications and gaming."

A myMail application for email and a myChat application for texting were released on Tuesday to join the company's myGames software for mobile devices.

Each of those mini-programs are facing a market packed with rivals.

"Being the geeks that we are, we set out to develop really useful apps that will be powerful enough for a power user and at the same time, not too complicated for his grandma," the company said.

© 2013 AFP