INTERNET

Global internet usage grew unabated over the past year. A total of 1,7 billion people worldwide are now online, an 18% increase over the previous year. The most significant online growth occurred in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, China and Russia.

Europe

Here we operate in the internet segments of transaction platforms, communities, communication platforms, entertainment services and mobile value-added services. Revenues flow in principally through e-commerce, classifieds, payment services, comparison shopping, advertising, fee-based value-added services and gaming.

The European portfolio comprises five main businesses. Mail.ru is based in Russia, the Allegro group and Gadu-Gadu in Poland, the Ricardo group in Switzerland and Nimbuzz in the Netherlands. Operations are spread across 25 countries.

The Allegro group comprises fixed-price e-commerce transaction platforms, as well as auctions, classified advertisements (eg auto, real estate, jobs and travel), price comparison and social-shopping sites, plus a payments platform. A number of these services operate across Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Serbia. The group recorded satisfactory growth during the review period. Page views grew to 78,4 billion and 156,8 million items were sold with a gross merchandise value of PLN8bn (R20,8bn), generating PLN664,5m (R1,7bn) in revenues.

Over the past year Mail.ru produced sound results in a difficult market, outgrowing its peers. The completion of the Astrum transaction makes Mail.ru the largest online communication and entertainment company in Russia. During 2009 Mail.ru expanded its user base and by March 2010 had 123,7 million visitors to its portal, producing 17 million page views per month. The core mail platform continued to show strong growth with 308 200 users registering new accounts daily, whilst the social-networking component of Mail.ru added 173 600 new users each day. Astrum is the largest games developer and games platform operator in Russia.

Gadu-Gadu operated in a depressed advertising market but continued to further diversify its revenue streams. A total of 10,3 million monthly instant-messaging (IM) service people use this platform and, since the release of the new IM version, activity has increased.

Ricardo continues to lead in its core market and introduced new vertical services in Switzerland. Launches included Ricardo Shops [a business-toconsumer (B2C) merchant platform] and Tradus.ch (a general classifieds platform).

Nimbuzz, now 43,6% owned by MIH, is a Netherlands-based technology firm focused on mobile instant messaging and voice-over internet protocol (VoIP). During the review period, the company grew its user base to 17,1 million and launched its first monetisation product, NimbuzzOut (comparable to SkypeOut).

South-east Asia

MIH’s interests in India and the rest of south-east Asia grew both organically and through acquisition.

In India ibibo, our joint venture with Tencent, has established itself as the leader in social transactions. It was recognised by Business Week as one of the top 50 technology start-ups globally and ended the year as a top 30 website in the country. ibibo is now also the leading social gaming platform in India and launched Tradus.in and goibibo – both e-commerce initiatives.

Investments were made in the Philippines, where MIH acquired 51% of sulit.com.ph – a local website and online classifieds service. In Malaysia we acquired a 34% shareholding of lelong.com.my – an online trading platform.

Despite turbulence in Thailand, Sanook! developed its e-commerce business, launching two verticals in autos and real estate. Sanook! is the leading local portal in Thailand.

MIH increased its shareholding in Buzz City to 36%. This is a Singapore-based developer of cellular services, including a global mobile advertising network.