Directory services company JustDial is looking to expand overseas to the Middle East some time at the end of this quarter. The company also said that its UK website is live and JustDial is still enriching content in these countries and there is no special effort to monetize it right now. The company is currently monitoring the amount of traffic it can attract organically and will later take the necessary steps to monetize, JustDial founder V.S.S Mani mentioned during the company’s Q3-Fy15 earnings conference call.
Speaking about the company’s plans in the US, Mani said the country is not a priority market even though the company crosses about 100,000 users a day who do not spend a penny. Mani added that JustDial would not be looking at competing with existing players and actually send them more traffic and focus more on the users visiting JustDial’s site.
“We would be sitting on top of all the vertical players which means that we would actually have you search for various categories like you already can search for movies and actually buy movie tickets, and this is kind off powered by Fandango the leading movie ticketing site in US. Then similarly you can book tables and it is powered by Open Table in restaurants and you would soon be able to call a plumber or electrician on the call and it would be powered by a company called Service Magic (now called HomeAdvisor),” he added.
It’s worth noting JustDial will also bring the operations in United States and Canada under its direct control. JustDial has a license agreement with its group company JustDial Global, which currently operates the site in US and Canada. JustDial Global expressed inability to continue operations in these two markets, hence this move. JustDial had informed BSE that the company board approved the possible acquisition of JustDial Inc. from JustDial Global.
