MSN India expects to stake claim to the numero uno position in India, dethroning present incumbent Yahoo! India, in terms of the unique user (UU) base.
Shriram Adukoorie, director, MSN Business Group-India, claimed that the company was all set to gallop past Yahoo! in terms of the unique user base it enjoyed.
"MSN India's number of unique users as of July 2003 stands at 10 million. We are confident of sailing past Yahoo! India this year in terms of the number of unique users," Adukoorie told Business Standard.
While similar numbers for Yahoo! in India is not available, the last independent study data available, as on February 2002, conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings, clearly indicates Yahoo! as the leader with a UU of 1.02 million which MSN India followed with a 0.79 million UU.
The race to capture the No.1 position in India gains significance particularly when the market size of online advertising from India is expected to touch $100 million in the next five years. The market size is at present estimated at $15 million.
There is still some ambiguity as to what UU means to various portals in India. Adukoorie, said, "As far as MSN is concerned, if a registered user avails of more than two or three or our services, we would consider him a unique user."
Some of the services of MSN that are presently hot favourites among the Indian users includes, web mail service Hotmail, MSN Messenger, MSN Group and MSN Chat.
Adukoorie said "Yahoo! on the other hand, counts every one of its registered users as a unique users. This leaves considerable room for counting both multiple registrants and defunct users as unique users".
Saify Naqvi, director, TNE Systems Pvt Ltd, a firm that helps corporates chalk their media plans, including the online medium said, "There is no way to know who the market leader is. We have to rely to what ever Yahoo! and MSN claims about the number of unique visitors. Needless to say more often then not these numbers are exaggerated to paint a rosy picture."
Even the estimated current size of the online advertising market does not have any ownership.
"The figure is at best an estimate. There has been some research done by Nasscom and other independent bodies like McKinsey but the research does not specifically address Internet adverting revenues in India. The generally accepted sentiment in the industry is that the Internet advertising revenue has picked up in the last quarter. And if we go by the international trend it should rise further."
Naqvi further said, "According to Forrester Research, the international online advertising market is slated for a big rise by 2006 and it will give competition to the conventional form of advertising - print and television."
