It's not just the mobile equipment manufacturers or service providers salivating at the business prospects from the hitherto unexplored rural India. Taking a cue from the telecom and PC industry, Yahoo!India, is aggressively targeting the new Internet and mobile users in rural India with comprehensive services that include providing services like basic e-commerce, weather, crop patterns and health.
With competition from rival portals getting tougher, Yahoo! in no way wants to take any risks by bringing out new services for online communities, and Yahoo!oneSearch services on mobile platform.
"We can't just simply undermine the importance of rural India. In a typical rural set up, there are more sellers and more people to offer services. For the last several months, we have been debating on providing them with basic e-commerce support through the Internet, as PC penetration in rural India is expected to increase in the coming days. The same service can be offered on the mobile platform," Pranesh Anthapur, chief operation officer, Yahoo!India, Research & Development said.
In March this year, Yahoo introduced a mobile search system for Internet-enabled phones, in the US. The Yahoo!oneSearch system for mobile phones delivers locally relevant answers to the users.
The company plans to roll out this service in many emerging markets including India, in the near future. Anthapur said that the rural e-commerce service the company is planning to introduce, could be available both on the web and on mobile phones.
"We already have a very efficient mobile platform and we only need to customise it for the target audience," he added.
Yahoo! India is planning to offer information on the availability of warehouses and the best available rates for their products in any mandis or kiosks closer to their places basically targetting the rural farming communities. This would help to eliminate middlemen.
The company also plans to offer local rain-pattern, weather information and basic health-information to the rural and semi-urban population.
Lagging in competition in the search category, the company is working to bring out innovative services targeting emerging markets like India. According to Andrew Tomkins, director, Search Research, the company is restructuring its search platform, with an aim of providing better search results.
"We have got more than 120 separate properties in Yahoo mail. Our aim is to how to localise the content for specific geographic locations and how to enhance the users' experience by bringing out innovative products," he added.
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