New Delhi: Close on the heels of announcing its plans to enter the lucrative Indian market, leading Internet company Altavista said on Monday that it has decided against a joint venture and would now launch its wholly-owned subsidiary Altavista India by October this year. "The company was earlier looking at two options for establishing its presence in India, that of entering the market through a joint venture or setting up a 100 per cent subsidiary. The company has now taken a decision to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary Altavista India by October," Martin Keogh, international business development director of Altavista, told PTI. Keogh said the company would soon approach the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) with its proposal but declined to divulge the amount of investment it would seek. Elaborating on the company's strategy for the Indian subsidiary, Keogh said that by 2003 Altavista would look at diluting its stake in the Indian company to media and content companies. "We would also consider technology, telecommunication companies and Internet Services Providers (ISPs) as our partners for buying out a majority stake in the Indian company," Keogh said.
The minority stake would allow Altavista to have a board representation in the company, Keogh said adding it would also allow the company to cut down on legal, tax and infrastructural issues. "One of the basic problems that the company is facing is that the lack of a 100 per cent Indian subsidiary is preventing the company from using www.Altavista.co.in as a Web address," Keogh said.
The direct presence would allow the company to migrate to the new address, instead of www.In.Altavista.com, he added.
Earlier this month the company had launched its India-specific search engine containing 1.2 million India-specific Web pages and said it was reviewing various entry options including a joint venture or an India subsidiary by mid 2001.
Altavista had also said that in case of a joint venture the company would keep the majority stake to itself. The new search engine which marked the Internet major's entry into the market is expected to cover over 90 per cent of Indian Websites facilitating enhanced interaction between two Indian companies, between an international and an Indian company, and between global companies and NRIs.
Besides developing Indian content around the new site, the company would also launch its local language specific search engine in the country soon, martin said.
Altavista, a comprehensive Internet index service currently supports 250,000 Indian Net users, and the company was targeting 20,000 to 30,000 unique users in the country following the launch.
The company which processes about 40 per cent of all Web-based search queries translating into 20,000 searches in a minute, already has similar country specific engines for France, Germany, Italy, Nethrelands, Sweden and UK.
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