Yahoo to increase presence in Southeast Asian region

Yahoo  has decided to increase its presence in the Southeast Asian region to keep up with the growing number of Internet users here - increasing both its staff and investment. Currently, about 10% of Yahoo's 429 million Internet users a month are from Southeast Asia. It is predicted that the number of Internet users in Southeast Asia is expected to rise by 83% to 100 million by 2008 from the 54.7 million users at present.

Last Wednesday, Yahoo released its localized home pages for Malaysia and Singapore, and plans to release a Thai version in the next 6 months. Currently, the Singaporean and Malaysian markets account for 50% of Yahoo's business here.