Yahoo! Philippines kicks off 2009

Yesterday, the Yahoo! Philippines team presented some of their strategy and plans for 2009 in the country. In a cook-off style, General Manager Jojo Anonuevo outlined updates of Yahoo! Philippines’ progress:

• Yahoo! is committed to being the essential online starting point for consumers through its products Yahoo! Search, Mail, Messenger, Front Page, Mobile, and News, as consumer internet growth in the Philippines is growing; from one in five users today, to one in three users by 2010, according to IDC 2008. The Yahoo! network has captured 85% of all online consumers, and 95% of mobile web consumers in the country.



• In line with Yahoo!’s open strategy of opening up its assets to third party publishers, developers, and advertisers, the company yesterday launched SearchMonkey (developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey), a product the allows sites’ search results to become more useful, engaging, and vibrant. To see samples of how SearchMonkey changes the online search experience for consumers, check out search results from Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Facebook, NBA, and others on www.yahoo.com.ph.
• Last year, Yahoo! Philippines and Level Up! Games announced the Yahoo! Advantage Program for Internet Cafes (yahoo.com.ph/icafe) to help grow their businesses. This year, Yahoo! has announced that they’ve acquired a network of over 5000 icafes in the Philippines, around 50% of the total number in the country, and are announcing Yahoo! Advantage 2.0. The second phase explores ways for icafe owners to develop consumer outreach and engagement, while continuing to introduce new incentives of the program.
  
• As search advertising is growing with an estimated online ad spend of $22 million dollars — $15 million on display advertising, and $7 million on search advertising, Yahoo! Philippines has announced a new, direct sales model to make it easier for advertisers and marketers to launch ad campaigns on Yahoo!. The sales team is led by Cris Concepcion, and has committed to creating more creative and effective advertising opportunities for marketers and advertisers in the current economic downturn. “Now is not the time to hold back,” Concepcion said about companies’ advertising efforts. “Now is the time to spend more, don’t spend less.”