Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reports that India boasts of 812 million mobile subscribers and Just Dial with its 57 million registered users has benefited largely from India’s love of texting.
Online PR News – 08-September-2011 –This online yellow pages company was set up in 1996. Initially it offered information solely through a voice based process, giving information from the nearest hospital, hotels, cafes, stores, furniture shops etc. It gained popularity as users preferred to get all their information over a single call through a friendly human assistant rather than pour over bulky yellow pages directory and local business directory. Recalls V.S.S. Mani, the company's founder,” We would read out information which they would then write down on a piece of paper,” recalls V.S.S. Mani, the company's founder”.
When in 2002, when mobile telephone penetration reached its peak, the cheapest handset cost as little as 900 rupees and call rates were as low as 1 rupee per minute. Today 95% of Justdial callers have information texted back to them on their mobiles all within a minute of their call.
Justdial’s services are akin to geo tracking mobile apps for android and Apple's iPhone because they tell you where your nearest desired restaurant or café is based on the callers location, which is a huge advantage.
It’s a relatively simple task to create a user profile based on the person’s search history and most companies are willing to pay for such information. Justdial however never misuses the information and shares it only with businesses that will help the callers. Callers may find it irritating to get calls from competing vendors, however when they do get the best deals and hence most don’t mind it. Mr Mani states that “At Just Dial, the numbers we share are only to help the caller make an informed decision."
A few useful ideas have been borrowed by Justdial from the social media. A recommendation service where each caller is asked to rate the last vendor discovered through Just Dial on a scale of one to five. Today they have a database of over 2.5 million ratings. ‘Tag your friend’ is another feature which allows a user to tag up to 25 mobile numbers whose owners also use this service. This feature lets a caller know how good or bad the service he is looking for is rated by his friends. Mr Mani also has plans to start a service which will let customers know of the top deals in their area, like Groupon, the pioneers of online vouchers.
There are higher challenges for Justdial and according to Vibhor Mehra, a partner at SAIF Capital, another private-equity outfit which has holds a minority stake since 2006, the company may file for an initial public offering later this year. Also the company has attracted $10m from private-equity firms SAP Ventures and Sequoia Capital.
Before these milestones, Justdial had been through many struggles. The founder Mr Mani came up with a phone-based local business directory search in 1989 but due to lack of infrastructure and poor telephone penetration the service went bust. Also its nascent web portal, justdial.com, took time to attract traffic. However that is in the past as it receives over 325,000 visits a day.
Today Just Dial has overcome its teething stages and now has over 5 million corporate listings accessible in 2,000 Indian towns and cities. However Mr Mani wants to extend his service beyond the Indian shores and the first step towards this dream was starting of this service last year in America, with a toll free number 1-800-500-0000.
Justdial today is India’s leading local search engine and is working its way through to become world's leading local search service.
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