Asian telecom heavyweights begin portal battle

From...

June 1, 2000
Web posted at: 10:22 a.m. EDT (1422 GMT)

by David Legard

(IDG) -- Asian former monopoly telecom carriers Cable & Wireless HKT and Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) have found a new area in which to compete with each other -- Internet portals.

The two regional giants have both announced plans this week to expand the geographical reach of their portal offerings, SingTel through its Lycos Asia joint venture with Terra Lycos, and C&W HKT with its wholly owned Netvigator brand.

Hong Kong-based C&W HKT launched Netvigator in Malaysia adding to its Hong Kong, Taiwan and Canada portals. The portal offers a mix of news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel and career information.

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Lycos Asia has recently set up in China, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan after initially establishing its presence in Singapore and Malaysia. The immediate future markets for Lycos Asia will be India, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia.

The carriers, along with the ubiquitous Yahoo portals, face competition around Southeast Asia from a variety of smaller portals.

Singapore-based Catcha.com has formed a network of localized portals in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. These offer more targeted local content than the large generic portals, Catcha.com CEO Patrick Grove said in a recent interview.

Malaysia has its own popular home-grown portal, Skali.com, which plans to set up representative offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Indonesia by end of June to aggregate partnerships.

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Cable & Wireless HKT home page
Singtel's home page
Lycos Asia portal site

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