After US launch, Just Dial plans a major global push

After US launch, Just Dial plans a major global push

The No.1 Indian search engine, Just Dial Pvt. Ltd, has recently started operation in the US and in the coming months plan to expand to every major English speaking country in the world starting from Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Capital will be no restrain for Justdial as it still has around $46 million (around 204 crore) of unused funds that it raised from private equity firms such as California-based Sequoia Capital, Hong Kong-based SAIF Partners and New York-based hedge fund Tiger Global.

In the fiscal year 2010 revenues are expected to touch at Rs. 200 crore, last year the revenues of Justdial were at Rs134 crore. The current daily call flow is around 50,000 and last year the annual call rate was at 70 million calls. It currently has a local business directory of at least 100,000 in 240 cities nationwide.

Justdial's operating model ensures that the customers avail the service free of cost only paying for the outgoing call. Making the Yellow pages India and local business directory books obsolete, customers can get information through Phone, Web, WAP and SMS.

Revenues are generated from local businesses that are listed on the Justdial website. Being the first ones to launch such a service and now being available nation-wide there is very less competition. Where globally they would say google it up', here in India, you would most likely hear Just dial it'

According to Mani it is logical to start operations in developed economies as it is easier to get local businesses to sign up as there are middle-level players who act as aggregators. Just Dial has already progressed in establishing relationships with such middle-level players.

For the US process, operations will be initially handled from Justdial's call centers based in India. However Mani is willing to start a call centre in US with a work force of about 1000 even if it is at 30-40% higher cost compared to India.

Unlike the 411 services in US, Justdial's service is available for free on the toll-free number 1800-JUSTDIAL.The service will have a live person attending the call, as against the Google's 411 service, which is a voice-automated model. There will be initial road-blocks in the form of local knowledge and varying accents but Mani is sure that they will overcome it in no time.

With such strong faith we are sure that Justdial will soon be a regular feature in the most developed countries of the world.

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