Yahoo to ride on mobile boom in India

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 15 August 2003, 19:30 IST
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Global Internet firm Yahoo! on Thursday said it plans to ride on India's mobile explosion to drive growth for its products and services in the country.

BANGALORE: "One of the key areas in India is mobile space. It is different here than in other countries where communication is largely through PC's. Here the growth in mobile phones and other devices will drive the way information is accessed," Yahoo! Inc co-founder and chief David Filo told reporters in Bangalore at the inauguration of its software development centre. Asserting that India offered a different "perspective", Filo said it would also help in understanding similar markets like Japan and Korea, where mobile penetration was high. The mobile subscriber base was growing at 1.5 million every month in India and experts indicate that this would surpass the growth of China in future. He said the services and products being offered to mobile subscribers include ring tones, pictures and images, messengers, music and accessing e-mail, among others. "The growth here will be added by mobile subscribers, which India is adding phenomenally. And it is one of the reasons why we have set up our development centre in India which gives us a different perspective than in the US," Filo, who was optimistic about the Indian operations, said. He said Yahoo was adding over 200 million new users every month thanks to the rapid Internet penetration in developing countries.