Yahoo! India to concentrate on wireless data

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 27 October 2003, 20:30 IST
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MUMBAI: Yahoo! India, a subsidiary of Internet portal major Yahoo! Inc, will concentrate on wireless data services as it expects an exponential growth in the sector due to rise in mobile phone users in the country. "Even on a conservative outlook, we expect the wireless data services market to grow at around 100 per cent in line with this mobile telephony sector in India," Yahoo! India country manager Neville Taraporewala said on Friday. The portal, which had already begun offering PC-to-mobile based services in the country, including SMS, downloadable ringtones, picture messages and logos among others, would cash in on the exponential growth, he said. Yahoo! India has revenue sharing agreements with most of the GSM service providers, except BSNL and BPL, he said, adding, it would soon be inking deals with these players too. The company's total subscriber base for wireless data operations rose to over one crore in 2003, compared to 40 lakh posted a year ago, he said, adding, "an evolution of data from Internet and PC-based systems, to handheld systems like mobile phones is being experienced in India". On the revenue expected from the mobile data operations, Taraporewala said the company expects to post a "double digit" figure this year. Yahoo! India is also planning to planning to introduce downloadable Java-based games and other services as part of its wireless data offerings, Taraporewala said.