SPARK search requests increase 70% in 2008

SPARK (www.spark.interfax.ru) Russia’s biggest corporate information database created by Interfax, processed more than 4.3 million requests in 2008, which is 1.7 times more than in 2007 (2.6 million requests). SPARK’s growing popularity is the result of an increase in the number of users, more information available through the system and added functions.

SPARK(www.spark.interfax.ru) Russia’s biggest corporate information database created by Interfax, processed more than 4.3 million requests in 2008, which is 1.7 times more than in 2007 (2.6 million requests). SPARK’s growing popularity is the result of an increase in the number of users, more information available through the system and added functions.

“The SPARK database increased 30% over the year, the number of companies in the system, excluding the self-employed, rose to 6.4 million, ” said Roman Laba, SPARK Project Manager, commenting on the system’s performance last year. “The growth in the number of requests was also due to the increased speed of information search thanks to the implementation of modern technologies and the upgrade of equipment."

Whereas in early 2008 the search by company details took the average of three seconds, in late 2008 that period reduced to 0.7 seconds. The number of search requests in December 2008 rose to 403,000 against 262,000 in December 2007. The most searched for company is Gazprom, with 6,324 requests. Lukoil and Aeroflot are in second and third place, respectively.

In 2008 SPARK launched a new module on the regional and industrial statistics and consumer and manufacturer prices. Also, SPARK has added the function of ranging the regions and insurance companies by key indicators.

In addition, SPARK has renewed its methods of calculating bank figures in line with the current legislation.

In 2008 SPARK also created a function, which helped the staff of a corporate subscriber to organize its joint work with a single user list.

The user-list function was expanded through the automatic monitoring of updated information about companies and e-mail notifications. Thanks to the new function, SPARK clients can now receive e-mail alerts about issuers’ major events.

As part of its new project, the http://www.gde24.ru/ information reference website, Interfax added to SPARK updated details of 90,000 companies, including their telephone numbers, postal and electronic addresses, websites, more detailed profile and many other things. This led to another novelty added to SPARK – the search for a company by a telephone number.

Among the SPARK developers’ plans is to increase the amount of verified information and to update own databases for Interfax clients.

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