Today’s unsubstantiated takeover rumor comes from the Hindustan Times, who reports “US-based Internet giants such as Google and Yahoo are eyeing Rediff.com India Ltd, which runs one of India’s most popular consumer Internet portals”.
Mumbai, India headquartered Rediff.com is a NASDAQ listed company that is a leader in the Indian market, providing news, information, communication, entertainment and shopping services for Indians both in India and worldwide.
The Hindustan Times quotes “investment banking sources” saying that the management of Rediff “was in talks with the global companies for a negotiated takeover deal”.
Rediff share price has risen recently on speculation that the company may be a takeover target.
It’s possible that Rediff could be in talks, but speculation that it’s Google or Yahoo that is looking to acquire Rediff is exactly that: speculation, and with no basis in fact. On recent history, Google and Yahoo are actually unlikely suitors; although Rediff’s market cap and therefore rough takeover price of $738.9million would put it into the realms of a Google buy, recent history, particularly with Google would suggest otherwise. Both Google and Yahoo went gun-ho into China with poor results, and of late Google has chosen to partner with existing players as opposed to buying them. Although India isn’t China, both share a similar demography in terms of growth and of being “foreign” in comparison to traditional Western markets where the Google and Yahoo model has worked well.
Someone May Be Looking To Buy Rediff ????
No, from what I’ve read there are just rumors. But again, there’s no smoke without fire…
hhmmm …. thts news
Rediff has huge intellectual property, great community (the amount of reader participating in their usal news is huge), excellent coverage of sports, business news and they have been the frontrunner in developing clean web-interface in India. They have gained a loyal customer ahead of traditional newspaper/media sites
They will continue to dominate the market with/without takeover… but it is a great chance for Google/Yahoo to tap the Indian market.
Rediff has always been a takeover target, if rumors are to be true, it’s finally materializing for them.
Rediff has excellent brand recall in India for news content, and it will be an ideal addition to Google that doesn’t have an India-specific portal.
“India isnt China”
My point exactly. So why would Rediff takeover be bad? All they have to do is keep Rediff’s spirit intact.
Rediff’s editorial quality has been pathetic in recent times.. maybe a takeover will change things
Looks like NOT happening:-
http://www.contentsutra.com/en.....-baseless/
Recently there was article on Moneycontrol (http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/business-news/will-rediffcom-listindia-/291364) where Ajit Balakrishnan was quoted about listing on Indian bourses.
Takeover or no takeover, rediff is much better as against any other Indian portal with its depth and content.
TechZilo
I’m not saying it would be bad, I’m noting that Yahoo and Google completely screwed up in China, they’d be silly to make the same mistakes in India.
Comment 3. Yes; Rediff is that big, however I wouldn’t have added the first line if I wasn’t a little bit skeptical about it.
Yahoo could be first to buy reddiff. they have yahoo stuff than google tech.
Recently, another big player (SIFY)and Microsoft inked an alliance to promote MS Products via SIFY .com.
Its interesting because SIFY has a huge broad band foot print across the country with its Cyber Cafe’s and ISP.
Is this a sensible Google buy??
Santosh,
“they have been the frontrunner in developing clean web-interface in India”
rediff.com in no way looks like a clean web-interface to me
Rediff is a portal and I don’t think Google would be interested in buying a portal. perhaps it will make more sense to Yahoo/MSN.
More purchases:
Yahoo is buying ClickandBuy, the german payment processing company to be in the battle with Paypal and Google checkout!!!
I think Goog is done buying for a couple years. (big buying)
- I think they eat small companies everyday for breakfast lunch and dinner.
- heh anthing over 1bn is probably 2 years out.
It unlikely that Google will buy Rediff, as Rediff apparently selects all of the news to place on their site, which seems to be counter Google’s method of distributing content through algorithms.
Its possible that the journalist was fooled into believing that Rediff would be acquired, by his banking source, who actually wanted to increase the price of Rediff stock before he sells out. That type of thing happens a lot in India.
Santosh,
“they have been the frontrunner in developing clean web-interface in India”
If you think Rediff has a clean interface, I wonder how bad the not so good/clean interfaces look. Damn that page in one cluttered piece of junk.
I agree that Rediff has always been a portal and gels better with Yahoo’s strategic direction rather than Google’s direction.
Whoever takes it over — do a better job with those pesky pop up ads.
I agree - Rediff is a dinosaur when it comes to user experience and using Web Standards-based design. Upstarts like burrp.com are leagues ahead when it comes to this stuff, and other smaller players are starting the pave the path in India. A minor roll-up strategy of these guys might make more sense, as the teams are lean, flexible, and very cognizant of the startup grittiness it takes to succeed.