VK's Max messenger hits 90 million daily users as revenue rises 21%

VK has published upbeat third-quarter results, with revenue up 21% year on year to 47 billion rubles and its Max messenger passing 90 million daily users. Shares rose by more than 5% on the news.

Max: 140 million accounts

Between July and September, Max earned more than 700 million rubles from business services and advertising. The platform has 140 million registered users, 11 million of them abroad. Monthly audience exceeded 109 million, daily audience topped 90 million, and the number of channels passed 15 million.

Users make about 34 million calls and send more than 1.9 billion messages a day. That works out to roughly 21 messages per daily user.

Group financials improve

For the first nine months, VK's revenue grew 15% to 128 billion rubles. The VK Tech division grew faster, with revenue up 35% to 14.4 billion rubles. Nine-month EBITDA rose 30% to 20.2 billion rubles; in the third quarter it reached 6.2 billion rubles, up 22%, for a margin of 16%. The company kept its full-year EBITDA forecast at more than 24 billion rubles.

Net operating cash flow reached 17.4 billion rubles, compared with a negative figure a year earlier. Net debt fell 11% to 73.3 billion rubles, and the net debt to EBITDA ratio stood at 2.7x at the end of September. VK's year-end target remains a range of 2x to 3x.

VK's average daily audience grew by 11.8 million to 90.8 million users, and time spent averaged 8.1 billion minutes per day. Compared with September 2025, users spend 62% more time in the company's services.

The figures show Max moving from a launch project to a platform with a monetization stream, even if its ad and business revenue is still small next to the group's 47 billion rubles quarterly total. Investors have reacted positively, and the next test will be whether VK can hold its EBITDA and leverage targets for the full year.