ICQ

The messenger that gave you a number

Shut down
19902026

ICQ was the first instant messenger to reach a mass audience, launched in November 1996 by the Israeli startup Mirabilis. AOL bought it in 1998 for $287 million, sold it to Russia's Digital Sky Technologies in 2010 for $187.5 million, and its last owner VK shut it down on 26 June 2024, after 28 years.

Timeline

  1. 1996
  2. November 1996 Launch
    ICQ released by Mirabilis

    Free instant messenger for Windows; users identified by a numeric UIN.

  3. 1998
  4. 5 June 1998 Acquisition
    AOL acquires Mirabilis for $287 million

    Cash deal plus up to $120M in contingent payments; ICQ has ~12 million registered users.

  5. 2001
  6. 2001 Peak
    Peaks around 100 million registered accounts

    ICQ is one of the largest online communities of the dot-com era.

  7. 2005
  8. 2005 Decline
    Loses ground to MSN, Yahoo, AIM and Skype

    Bundled competitors and VoIP redefine instant messaging; ICQ shrinks outside Russia and the CIS.

  9. 2010
  10. 8 July 2010 Acquisition
    AOL sells ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies for $187.5 million

    Sale completes on 8 July 2010; userbase is strongest in Russia.

  11. 2016
  12. April 2016 Feature
    Mail.ru open-sources the ICQ clients

    Desktop and mobile client source code is published on GitHub.

  13. 2020
  14. April 2020 Rebrand
    Relaunched as "ICQ New"

    Mail.ru Group rebuilds ICQ on its own messaging stack in a bid for a comeback.

  15. 2024
  16. 24 May 2024 Shutdown announced
    VK announces ICQ will stop working

    Users are pointed to VK Messenger and VK WorkSpace.

  17. 26 June 2024 Shutdown
    ICQ servers go offline after 28 years

    The first mass-market instant messenger shuts down for good.

Ownership

Mirabilis 1996–1998 Founded Founded in Tel Aviv; ICQ released November 1996
AOL 1998–2010 Acquisition, $287M
Digital Sky Technologies / Mail.ru Group / VK 2010–2024 Acquisition, $187.5M DST became Mail.ru Group, renamed VK in 2021

Key figures

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Registered accounts 12 million June 1998 Confirmed At the time of the AOL acquisition
Registered accounts ▲ 100 million 2001 Reported
Daily active users 42 million April 2010 Reported At the time of the DST sale

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down

Official line: VK announced ICQ "will stop working from June 26, 2024" and recommended users switch to VK Messenger.

Our analysis: A slow 20-year decline: AOL prioritised AIM, then bundled competitors (MSN, Yahoo) and Skype took the mainstream, and finally smartphone messengers erased what was left outside Russia. VK consolidated its messaging into its own apps.

History

The number that was your identity

Before screen names and phone numbers took over, you were a number. ICQ assigned every user a sequential UIN (Universal Internet Number), and early adopters wore their five- and six-digit numbers like badges of seniority. The "uh-oh" message sound and the blooming green flower icon became part of the internet's shared childhood.

Mirabilis, founded in Tel Aviv in 1996 by Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser, Amnon Amir and Arik Vardi, released ICQ in November 1996 as a free download. It spread with almost no marketing: within its first year it had millions of users at a time when the entire web was small enough for that to be astonishing.

The AOL years

In June 1998 America Online paid $287 million in cash for Mirabilis, with up to $120 million more in contingent payments. At the time ICQ had about 12 million registered users. It was one of the largest acquisitions of an Israeli tech company to date and became the founding legend of the "startup nation" story.

Under AOL, ICQ kept growing through the dot-com era and peaked around 100 million registered accounts in 2001. But AOL already owned a competing messenger, AIM, and ICQ never got a coherent strategy. MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger were bundled with operating systems and portals, and by the mid-2000s Skype had redefined what a messenger was.

The Russian afterlife

By 2010 ICQ's userbase had contracted sharply, but it remained strong in Russia and the CIS. AOL sold ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies for $187.5 million, roughly a third of what it had paid twelve years earlier. DST's successor Mail.ru Group (renamed VK in 2021) kept the service alive, even relaunching it as "ICQ New" in 2020.

It wasn't enough. On 24 May 2024, VK announced that ICQ would "stop working" on 26 June 2024, directing remaining users to VK Messenger. The servers went dark on schedule. The flower had outlived AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, but not the smartphone messengers that replaced them all.

Read more

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Sources

  1. America Online Inc. Form 8-K: acquisition of Mirabilis Ltd. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 19 June 1998
  2. AOL Inc. Form 8-K: sale of ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 28 April 2010
  3. Uh-oh: ICQ is shutting down on June 26 Engadget 24 May 2024 [archived]
  4. ICQ — Definition, History, & Facts Encyclopaedia Britannica [archived]
  5. This pioneering instant messaging platform tried to keep up with the times — we take a closer look at why ICQ failed TechRadar 26 June 2024 [archived]

Last verified: 11 August 2026