Mumbai, Dec 5: If the IndiaWorld multiples were to be applied to acquire Rediff.com, shareholders in the company could laugh all the way to the bank with a cool $153 million on the back of an estimated 18 million page views each month and the advertising revenues that it attracts. Of the Rs 6 crore generated through ad revenues from Internet advertising each year in the Indian market, Rs 5 crore is reportedly split among four major players.With IndiaWorld getting Rs 25 lakh (as estimated earlier), Rs 4.75 crore is split between the other three. Once again, assuming there is a very liberal three-way split, Rediff should corner approximately Rs 1.5 crore.
If other revenue streams were to be factored in, the valuation is bound to go up by a couple of hundred million dollars. Though bear in mind that as far as e-commerce revenues go, there is very little to suggest Rediff makes anything substantial out of it. In pure value terms, selling books, music, assorted gifts, airline and railway tickets, cannotpractically pump the bottomline to respectable levels given existing realities.
But then, who really gives a damn. There's a market out there, waiting to chase dot.com paper. In some sense, eerily reminiscent of 1994.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.