Thanks for the data, Konstantin. By VK Messenger, do you mean the built-in messaging feature inside of VK on web and its app? I tried looking on App Annie for apps published by VK itself, but couldn’t find any specific instant messaging apps by the VK team.

I did find out about Vinci — apparently launched today — which lets users filter photos through neural networks, similar to what people were doing with Google DeepMind. As for Snapster, it has had ok moments, but it seems that throughout the last year, it has struggled to be one of the most popular apps — not even making the top 100 any time in the last months.

In terms of being aware — they’re certainly trying, however as it stands, both WhatsApp and Instagram are currently in the top 10 free apps in Russia, and VK is not.

Having said that, I don’t dispute VK’s absolute dominance. It’s just that there are very real risks to VK’s local dominance and now that VK has cleared music rights, they have a great way to try to negate those risks, securing their position locally, and perhaps even gaining traction beyond the former Soviet Union.