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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (10057)	12/16/1999 12:53:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 12475

Pacific Internet Targets 25 Indian Cities By Stefan Hammond Associate Editor, asia.internet.com [December 15, 1999--SINGAPORE] Pacific Internet has announced that its Mumbai-based JV unit, Pacific Internet India plans to launch Internet dial-up and corporate access services to 25 Indian cities by end-2000. Pacific Internet commenced its India operations two weeks ago and has been aggressively recruiting professional staff to support its expansion plan. Pacific Internet India aims to offer a suite of e-business and content services in collaboration with Pacfusion.com, Pacific Internet's e-Business division. Mohana Pillai, president of Pacific Internet India, said the firm has already started offering Internet access in Mumbai and will roll out services in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Calcutta and other cities in the coming months. Pillai added that competition in India is expected to be tough, but pointed to the company's 24-hour Technical Assistance Center as a plus for subscribers. Nicholas Lee, CEO of Pacific Internet Ltd, said the company extremely bullish on India as potential customers are highly educated, proficient in English and IT-savvy, while Internet penetration is low and growth potential is high. The company says that Pacific Internet India will be partnering with Indian content providers to publish their content on its portal and is aggressively looking into forming strategic joint ventures and other partnerships with local content partners. The company will be introducing several online services and proprietary content sites including IRC (Internet Relay Chat), Aunt Webby (online counseling service), Laugh Track (online jokes) and a chat group on Bollywood movie stars. The company will localize all content to cater to Indian tastes and preferences. Pacific Internet India also plans to set up a localized version of the company's successful online PI Mall, which will offer attractive discounts to merchants in a move to encourage small and medium-sized Indian enterprises to take their businesses online.