Yahoo! and India- A strategic move.
The latest news about Yahoo! buying a stake in Indiatimes couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. In a release by The Financial Times, states that "Yahoo, the US internet search engine, is in talks to acquire a minority stake in Indiatimes, the online operation of Bennett Coleman, India's biggest media group"
So why this interest for Yahoo! towards Indiatimes? Let us first put forth the present Internet Market in India.
With an increase in the awareness of the potential of Internet Marketing, and with various big companies such as ICICI, Citibank, HDFC considering Internet marketing as part of its budget, this only substantiates the fact of the growing online market in India.
Capturing a share of the still nascent Indian Markets
If all goes well between Yahoo! and the Bennet Coleman group, Yahoo can have the upper advantage in terms of reaching out to the Indians. We all know how aggressive Google has been in terms of improving its search features, and MSN following suit. This only intensifies the battle for the number 1 search engine. However, each search engine has its own loyal customers. However, Yahoo! has not been that aggressive and has been intelligent enough to diversify its services and not just relate to Search Engine marketing alone, targeted to the Indian Sub Continent.
Lets take a look at what Yahoo! has in store if everything goes well.
Indiatimes portal is owned by the Bennet Coleman group, which also publishes dailies such as "The Times of India" which was originally launched in 1838, the English language daily has a circulation of more than 21 million, apart from magazines such as Femina, etc and other journals. The biggest competitor to Indiatimes comes from Rediff.com However, Yahoo! has partnered with Rediff in terms of ecommerce. This gives Yahoo! the advantage in terms of partnering with 2 of the most popular portals in India in order to reach out to the most ignorant consumer who just recognizes the Internet as a medium to send mail and chat.
With Yahoo! having its share in Small Businesses and with Rediff and Indiatimes too venturing into the Small-Medium segment, Yahoo! will have the upper hand as compares to MSN or Google.
According to Alexa.com, which ranks websites based on the number of site clicks, the top two local portals in India are Rediff.com, ranked 139, and Indiatimes at 316 in a league of 500 most visited sites. Both lag behind Yahoo! India
This leaves us with an obvious question as to why tie up with Indiatimes if Yahoo already enjoys a good ranking compared to Rediff and Indiatimes? There are various reasons behind this and one of them is to project Yahoo! India as a completely Indian Portal. Another fact is that when it comes to Online Advertising or the PPC Models, none of the 2 Indian portals have the experience in setting up the system to offer to the Indian online consumers. Although Rediff has ventured into this model, they still need to clean up the ground work.
By joining hands with Yahoo!, Indiatimes can, if they want to, get the upper hand over Rediff in terms of technology implemented marketing vehicles. All said and done, the story is yet to begin. It’s a win-win situation here with both parties (read as Yahoo! and Indiatimes) looking at seriously expanding their online presence. While Yahoo! can try to out beat its rivals MSN, and partly Google, Indiatimes can be comfortably slated to slide over Rediff and actually make it to the number 1 slot, with Yahoo! India backing it up.
By reaching out to the Indian Markets, and already having consolidated its position in the Chinese market, Yahoo! is surely one company to look out for. After Google and MSN, may be its time for Yahoo to be in the spotlight. And finally, with these changes happening, may be its time the Indian markets have opened up and recognized online marketing.
About the Author
John Benjamin works as an Internet Marketing freelance consultant. He also operates his website http://www.promindsinc.com