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.
"One of the key areas in India is the 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 the developing countries.
Yahoo!, Filo said, was aiming to ramp up its strength in the Bangalore centre, the first outside the US, to over 150 by the end of next year.
India's large English speaking population was "fortunate", he said, adding, "going forward...as the market gets bigger and to reach out to the larger population, providing services and products in local languages would be definitely in."
Filo said the India development centre will have a strength of over 150 professionals by next year, but declined to comment on the firm's investment plans in the country.
Stating that advertisement revenue had picked up after a huge drop due to technology bubble burst, he said, nearly 50 per cent of the revenues are earned from advertisements.
Filo said free services would continue to exist in the foreseeable future, but added efforts would be made to convert some for premium products.
Yahoo! senior vice president (engineering) Phu Hoang said the India development centre would leverage the 12-hour time gap with the US to provide 24/7 customer support.
"This will be an extension of our US centre and support all our activities in the US. It will be a key part in customising and developing scalable solutions and to run Internet services across the world," he said.
Yahoo India will also provide customised solutions for the firm's operations in 25 countries, Hoang said.
© 2025