To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (7172 ) 10/21/1997 1:48:00 PM From: Glenn D. Rudolph Respond to
INTERVIEW-Yahoo sees rapid Japan Internet growth
Reuters Story - October 21, 1997 06:41
%JP %US %WHO %DPR %TEL 4689.Q 9984.Q YHOO XCIT 8001.T V%REUTER P%RTR
By Yuko Inoue
TOKYO, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Japan's market for Internet
services will take off within two years and start growing at a
pace similar to that in the United States, said the chief of a
leading Internet search company, Yahoo Japan Corp .
"Within two years, Japan's Internet service market will
start expanding at an annual rate of 50 percent, as in the
U.S.," Masahiro Inoue, president of Yahoo Japan, told Reuters in
an interview on Tuesday.
The fast growth in Japan's Internet service market has
already allowed Yahoo Japan, a joint venture between Japanese
software publisher Softbank Corp and the biggest U.S.
Internet search company, Yahoo Inc , to become the
youngest company ever to list shares on Japan's stock market.
Research company IDC Japan estimates there were 10 million
Internet users in Japan in 1997, up from five million in 1996.
IDC expects the figure to grow to 32 million in 2000.
Yahoo Japan, which has expanded aggressively from a search
engine into an advertising-based media site on the World Wide
Web, will debut on Japan's over-the-counter market on November
4, less than two years after it launched the Japanese service in
April 1996.
"Thanks to a strong brand image created by our American
parent, we could put our top priority on boosting the bottom
line," Inoue said.
Yahoo Japan expects both sales and current profit to triple
to 1.22 billion yen ($10.0 million) and 140.6 million yen ($1.16
million), respectively, in the year to March 1998, he said.
Current profit is pre-tax and includes gains and losses from
securities investments and other non-operating activities.
The volume of traffic visiting Yahoo Japan's site is growing
at a breakneck pace, Inoue said.
The company said the 4.46 million daily page views it logged
in September was up from 1.1 million a year ago.
Inoue said Yahoo Japan owes its profitability to a structure
that helps keep the ratio of fixed costs to sales low compared
with other businesses, although he declined to give specific
figures.
Its U.S. parent boasts profitability of more than 18
percent, in terms of net profit compared to sales.
Inoue added that Yahoo Japan was looking at stock splits and
other measures besides dividend payments to return profits to
investors.
We have not yet decided on a dividend policy, but we feel
investors would benefit more from stock splits and capital gains
than from dividend payments, he said.
Other U.S. Internet service providers are also rushing to
Japan, the largest cyberspace market outside of the United
States.
Excite Inc , which has established a solid
number-two position after Yahoo in the United States, will
launch its Internet search service in Japan in October in
partnership with Japanese trading house Itochu Corp .
PointCast Inc, the pioneer of "push" technology, will launch
a Japanese-language version of its personalised news service in
Japan on October 16.
- Tokyo Equities Desk (813) 3432-8595
email: tokyo.equities.newsroomreuters.com
