Mashable.com, one of the most popular and widely read online news community and blog has decided to expand in India. They have partnered with Zee Entertainment backed India.com for local content and distribution, and have plans to establish their own editorial teams at New Delhi and Mumbai very soon.
Pete Cashmore, founder of Mashable announced their India expansion plans on Twitter:
Mashable is excited to be expanding into India. Here’s the announcement: http://t.co/iE5yIgBOjP
— Pete Cashmore (@petecashmore) February 18, 2015
Earlier, Adam Ostrow who is the Chief Strategy Officer at Mashable, posted a blog declaring their India plans. He said, “We at Mashable are pleased to announce the next step in our evolution as a global media brand: the creation of Mashable India, in partnership with India.com.”
Venture Capital Effect?
Last month, Pete Cashmore announced fresh funding of $17 million in Series B capital, led by Warner Brothers. In that announcement, Peter had made clear that the fresh funding would be utilized for expansion in Asia-Pacific region, and it seems that the India plan was in the making since some time.
Just before the funding announcement, on his Twitter account, he had followed Zee Entertainment MD and CEO Puneet Goenka. It seems that Mashable had plans of India expansion since long, and the fresh venture infusion finalized it.
As per their website, Mashable currently attracts 42 million visitors every month, and has 20 million social media followers, which is increasing at a rate of 25-30% annually.
Currently, India is Mashable’s biggest market out of USA. As per their Alexa stats, USA accounts for 45% of monthly traffic, followed by India at 14.6%, Canada at 3.4% and UK at 3.2%. From the point of view of traffic expansion, the decision to open a dedicated India site makes perfect sense for Mashable.
But Why Partnership With India.com?
India.com is a joint venture between Zee Entertainment and USA based Penske Media Corporation, which purchased 40% stake in 2010. As per Alexa, India.com is ranked 66 in India, and 84% of all visits originate from India. It has high search engine traffic, and publishes regional content as well. Besides publishing their own content, India.com curates content from partner sites such as BGR.in, CricketCountry.com, BollywoodLife.com, TheHealthSite.com, Prepsure.com, BrownPaperBag.in.
As per Zeenews, India.com reaches 45 million visitors every month.
Hence, if Mashable decided to venture on its own, then India.com and its partner websites could have been a major competitor to them. Instead of fighting them, they decided to join forces and create a stronger base for the expansion.
Last year in August, Huffington Post, another big-weight online publication portal from USA expanded in India and they partnered with Times Internet for the India centric venture. Times already has partnership with portals such as Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Business Insider, Ask Men etc.
Earlier in 2014, Quartz decided to partner with Scroll for their India expansion.
India already has 300 million Internet users right now, and will have 650 million+ smartphone users in the next 5 years. Our literacy rate is increasing, so is the hunger for fresh, exciting content which we want delivered right in our phone, accessible via single tap or click.
And international publications are in NO position to ignore this gigantic market.
Welcome to India, Mashable – We wish you best of luck!
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