Increased scope of advertising revenues through cafe’s and kiosks is helping companies revert their old stand of addition to their cyber cafe chain being put to backburner.
As part of its plan to expand in the Indian internet service retail business, net service provider Sify is planning to venture into single-PC internet kiosk business, besides opening 2,000 additional outlets of its iWay internet cafe chain.
Sify’s Strategy for their Iway chains:
Aman Mehra, Sify National head (expansion) told PTI, “We have started a pilot project in single-PC internet kiosk format and have tied up with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai to provide customer facilities. We are planning to take this format to all the metros and are in talks with some government agencies,”
The company has approached the Department of Information Technology (DIT) for collaboration in the project.
They are also expanding their iWay chain with plans to set up 2,000 more internet cafes by 2009-10, up from the existing 3,000 outlets. For the iWay project, they are focussing more on Tier II and III cities where internet and pc penetration is still low and would try to have uniform rate for all customers
All the new single-PC internet kiosks and iWay outlets would be franchise operated. Sify’s single-PC kiosks would be low-investment manned outlets, providing 45 services including internet, VOIP, travel booking and online bill payment.
Changing scenario:
Many online players are looking at entering into cybercafe space despite very harsh measures being taken by government after the recent mumbai blasts.
The main reason of this drive could be attributed to ad revenues which firms are getting by selling desktop space or partial ownership rights of these kiosks and entry of players like ideacts could only improve scenario of Indian cyber cafe scenario.
In the days to come similar announcements could be seen from the likes of R-ADAG group for their zapak gameplexes and kiosks being formed by several other companies for services and interactions with their customers.
