Online travel agency MakeMyTrip is in the final stages of negotiations to acquire online bus ticketing company Travis Internet Pvt. Ltd, which operates Ticketvala.com, MediaNama has learned from reliable sources within the company. We’re awaiting a response from Deep Kalra, CEO of MakeMyTrip, who is currently travelling abroad. The value of the deal could not be ascertained, though keep in mind that TicketVala had raised, according to Mint, $2 million from Footprint Ventures in November 2007. We’ll update when we have more details.

This acquisition is a little surprising, given that …Continue Reading

The eBay owned online payment service PayPal has abruptly stopped person to person (P2P) payments (transfer of money to a family or friend or for donations) and withdrawal from Indian banks for users attempting to send money from and to India, TechCrunch reported. The website’s international send money portal no longer offers the Indian Rupee (INR) in the drop down list of currencies and India has been removed from the list of countries allowing users to send money using the Personal Payment option. (Screenshot below)

PayPal has clarified that it has not halted e-commerce transactions and Indian merchants can continue to charge their clients and receive payments for goods shipped to an address: but they will be unable to withdraw the funds from local banks.

The company has earned the wrath of customers by not offering a prior intimation nor a time-line for when the service will be back on track. More grist to the mill for sites such as PayPalSucks.com!

Service, Compliance Issues
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Cable TV and Broadband service provider Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited’s IPO which is opening on February 9, 2010 will be used to repay loans and to step up its broadband and cable TV infrastructure. Out of the total amount it will raise, Hathway plans to use Rs 2,436 million for acquisition of new customers and Rs 1,564 million for development of digital capital expenditure, services and set top boxes.  Rs 830 million will be utilised in parts of of Rs 83 million in the fourth quarter of FY10, and Rs 747 million in the entire fiscal 2011 for development of broadband infrastructure and services. Rs 967 million will be used to repay loans of the company.

According to a filing on BSE, a total of 4,995,000 equity shares have been allocated to 13 anchor investors: Franklin Templeton India Group with 2,083,425 shares, DSP Blackrock Group with 1187550 shares, Reliance Capital Trustee Co. Ltd in account of Reliance Equity Opportunities Fund with 416,675 shares, Copthall Mauritius Investment Limited with 416,675 shares and Tree Line Asia Master Fund (Singapore) Pte Ltd with 890,675 shares. The equity shares have been prices at Rs 240 each including share premium of Rs 230 per share.

Promoters’ Stakes Post IPO
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Recommended Reading

• Paid News
• An Apology To Our Readers
• India’s 3G Auctions: Why Companies Are Fearful

A A Khan & Associates and Mumbai Police Raid  and Seize Pirated CDs and DVDs Worth Rs 265,000

A A Khan & Associates along with the Mumbai Police have raided two locations in Mumbai and seized more than 4500 pirated discs worth over Rs 265,000. The first raid was conducted at Andheri West, in a Godown next to the railway station. The second was carried out at Matunga West. The pirated CDs and DVDs at both the places included Ram Gopal Varna’s Rann, Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Ishqiya”. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “3 Idiots” & Salman Khan starrer “Veer”. Marathi movies “Jhenda” and Natrang” and yet to be released English movie. “Law Abiding Citizen” were also there.  Four people have been arrested respectively. Salimuddin Khan, age 22, has been arrested during Andheri Raid. Three stall owners, Raju Prakash Teli, age 22, Dinesh Amrutlal Gupta age 25 & Santosh Kumar Sahu, age 28 were arrested during the Matunga Raid.

HP’s online photo service Snapfish has launched a Snapfish application for iPhone users. The app is free for download.

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It’s about cashflows. The Indian Internet Industry has been plagued for long by issues of delayed payments, with payment cycles going well beyond the usual 60 day period. For online publishers, a minimum of 90 days has been a given, though in the brutal year that 2009 was, we’re told (by publishers, of course) that payments from certain digital agencies have taken as much as a year after the campaign finished.

In this context, an agreement signed in December between the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) that defines payment terms between agencies and online publishers is of great significance, particularly for small publishers that cannot afford having a large number in their ‘accounts receivables’ column. It’s about cashflows, and this is a game-changing agreement if enforced.

Some of the largest publishers from the Indian Internet Industry, 8-12 of them, are on board, including Rediff.com, Yahoo India, Indiatimes.com, Web18, NDTV Convergence, Livemint.com and Hindustantimes.com. Publishers had held a meeting on 12th January to discuss the agreement, which is, well, quid pro quo, and takes into account concerns of both agencies and publishers. According to a copy of the agreement that MediaNama received from sources (the IAMAI declined to share a copy), key terms of the agreement are as follows: …Continue Reading

Date: 29th to 5th Feb 2010
For Previous Editions: Weekly Digest Archive

Editors Picks

-Idea’s MobStore: App Or Services Store? New Revenue Model
-Cable Operator Hathway Files For IPO, Challenges

Earnings
-Vodafone Essar’s ARPU At Rs.209, Rev Up 9.1%
-Zylog’s Net Profit Up 18.5%, Rev Up 5.6%
-Aksh Optifibre’s IPTV & VoIP Losses Down
-Earnings Digest: Jagran Prakashan, Shyam Telecom & BAG Films
-Pyramid Saimira Posts Net Loss Of Rs. 36.4M
-Earnings Digest: Moser Baer, Educomp, Spice & Compact Disc India
-IOL Netcom Posts Net Loss Of Rs.47.55M, Sales Down 87%
-RCOM’s Revenues Fall 3.9% QoQ, MoU Up 23.4%
-Tata Communications Net Profit Soars, Revenue Down 23% YoY
-Tanla Net Profit At Rs.126.6M, Domestic Sales Shrinks Further
-MTNL’s Net Loss At Rs.8.95B, Wireless Revenues Down 22%, Landline Down 24.8%
-Geodesic Net Profit Falls 25.4% YoY, Revenues Down 17.2%

Industry News & Views

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Indian Digital & Media Stocks for the week ending 5th Feb 2010:

Aksh Optifibre
4 February 2010:Outcome of Cod Meeting

Geodesic
1 February 2010:Fixes Record Date for Interim Dividend

InfoMedia18
3 February 2010:Disc under Reg Subs Acq &Takeover & SEBI Insider Trading Reg
3 February 2010:Reg 7 of SEBI (Susbs Acq of shares & Takeovers)
2 February 2010:Disc under Reg Subs Acq &Takeover & SEBI Insider Trading Reg
2 February 2010:Reg.13-SEBI(Prohibition of Insider Trading Regulations)1992

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Hyderabad based Ybrant Digital has launched a city-wide search platform called YReach. Though labeled as a “shopping and lifestyle search platform”, it can more accurately be called a local search engine for restaurants, shopping destinations, movies and events in a city with additional content such as reviews, interviews, news, recipes etc.

The site only features Hyderabad currently, and will add Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Pune later. In order to keep up with competition – The City Guide, with whom NDTV Convergence partnered for its subsite, Asklaila and Burpp – YReach needs to update search for other cities as soon as possible. Rather than this hurried launch for one city, Ybrant should have waited and launched it pan-India. What was the hurry?

The Site, Searching, Categories
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Mobile VAS firm Tanla Solutions launched InTune, an application that can be used to judge singers at auditions.

InTune uses a voice analysis algorithm for which the company has filed a patent. The algorithm can continuously track, evaluate four parameters of a song: pitch, tempo, expression/modulation and it also conducts an intrinsic note matching. The company claims InTune can track 250 concurrent users, making it suitable for reality show producers to conduct large scale auditions. Tanla is targeting media firms and telcos too with this entertainment or VAS product.

It is also being offered to individuals – wannabe singers and artistes – as a way to test their talent. Singers can use the tool before auditioning for music based TV shows such as Indian Idol or Zee’s Saregamapa. To this end, Tanla has set up a website InTuneStar.com where users can track their performance and evaluate themselves with graphs such as this one.

The platform works on a mobile (it has been launched for the iPhone), through an IVR, online or as a desktop application. The application supports any language or dialect across the world and also works any device that supports voice telephony, the company claims.

3G Video Mail Next Quarter
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As expected, Vodafone Essar has added a much higher 8.56 million connections in the quarter ended December 2009. In the previous quarter, it added 6.3 million.  The #3 telco had a total of 91.4 million connections as of December 2009. In October, there were reports of the telco experiencing a rise in connections in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Increased additions have directly led to lower ARPUs: the operator suffered a fall in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) to Rs 209 from Rs 222 reported for the previous quarter. But other operators have fared no better: Bharti Airtel’s ARPU fell to Rs 230 and Idea’s to Rs 200, while RCOM’s was Rs 149.

Competition pressures are increasing for Vodafone with many operators offering per second billing pan-India and the growing number of Multi-SIMs. It has recorded higher annualised churn in prepaid connections at Vodafone at 38.9%, postpaid churn was at 26%.

Total voice minutes, which is the total volume of incoming, outgoing and visitor calls on the Vodafone Essar network have risen to 83,172 million in the quarter. The telco has 93,000 base stations in India covering 72% of the population.

Financials

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