Cyworld plans Indian foray

The $150-million South Korean internet major Cyworld is planning to enter India. This raises the number of multinationals looking to foray into India to around eight, including Amazon India, Yahoo! India, Google and MSN India among others.

Cyworld is South Korea's largest personal homepage services company and has over 17 million users in South Korea alone. Also known as an internet expression company, it recently set up base in China and Japan.

The main feature of the company is a blog-like 'mini hompy', a shortform for mini homepage. The mini rooms help customers customise their web pages.

Users can search for friends and create virtual bonds with other members. The site is also popular for 'Cy-ing', the technology that allows postings or uploading photos onto Cyworld.

"We are planning to enter India, which is the second largest internet market in the world. This is part of our plan to entering other Asian and European countries. India has a lot of potential in the software development front and we intend to utilise this by outsourcing development programs from the country," Seung-hoon Lee, senior vice-president, business division, said.

The company calls its subscribers, Cyholics, someone who is addicted to Cyworld. The company is still evaluating various options for its India foray.

Even though an internet firm doesn't need physical presence, a base in the of the country would help it localise content and target the market better, besides increasing the number of internet advertisements, which helps in building a brand image.

Cyworld may also offer software development contracts for its ongoing expansion plans to various companies in the country. However, Lee neither divulged the amount of investment earmarked nor the expected date for the foray.