Yahoo Betting On Online Ad Growth In Emerging Markets

Yahoo says it plans to expand its online advertising business in emerging markets above the standard 30 percent growth rate over the next few years.

Online advertising revenues in emerging markets are forecast to grow at 30 percent annually in the next three to four years as more users go online and access the Internet on mobile devices.

"For Yahoo’s emerging markets, we’re going to grow faster than that," Prashant Mehta, Yahoo’s vice president of emerging markets told Reuters.

Yahoo the number two search engine behind Google, projects it has 130 million users in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia, Latin America, India, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. This compares to more than 500 million users globally every month.

Mehta said Yahoo will "aggressively" hire new sales, marketing and engineering staff in these emerging markets, and will increase investment in infrastructure, but did not offer a detailed plan.

"We doubled our headcount in the emerging markets between 2006 and 2007. We’re not going to slow down our investments in these markets," he said.

Last month, Microsoft abandoned its bid to purchase Yahoo for $47.5 billion, or $33 a share. Yahoo rejected the offer and said it would only sell for $37 a share.