FT.com launches India homepage

The Financial Times will create some special content including videos only for the India homepage

FT.com, the website of the UK based business daily, The Financial Times, has recently unveiled its India specific homepage. This implies that whenever a user opens FT.com from India, he will land on FT.com's India homepage.

Interestingly, India is the only country in Asia for which FT.com has created a dedicated homepage. Other markets or countries which have separate homepages on FT.com are the US and the UK. The site also has separate homepages for continents, including Asia, West Asia and Europe.

The FT.com India homepage will carry local and global news relevant for the Indian market. The business daily will create some special content, including videos, only for the India homepage. However, there are no plans to expand the FT.com India homepage page to a full-fledged India edition, clarifies Angela Mackay, executive director and head, Asia Pacific, Financial Times, in an e-mail response to afaqs!.

The media company refused to divulge the volume of the traffic it gets from India. Mackay reveals that India is ranked first in terms of registered users and unique users on FT.com from Asia. As per the audience measurement website, Vizisense.com, business daily FT.com receives about 1.7 lakh unique users and 3.5 lakh page views per month from India. About 45 per cent of the visitors on the site belong to the age group of 15-24 years.

Mackay believes, "The timing is right for an India homepage on FT.com. India is a growth market, with an educated, enterprising and inquisitive business audience, which requires the independent analysis of global economic and business events."

Similar to its international online editions, the site plans to monetise the Indian homepage through paid subscription news model, apart from advertising.

Mackay says, "FT.com has always charged for content. The India page is an integral part of FT.com and, like the rest of the website, content will be monetised through our subscription model. Readers will be invited to register to view 10 articles a month free of charge and if they choose to view more than this number of stories, they are asked to pay subscription fees."

She adds, "We also plan to introduce a micro-payments system later this year, which will enable users to take small, bite-sized pieces of the website if they don't want to pay for the benefit of broad access."

For the record, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), another international business daily, had launched its Indian edition of WSJ.com last year. The Indian edition WSJ.com is available at India.WSJ.com.