France Telecom this week launched its highly
successful international portal VoiLa in the UK, at
www.voila.co.uk.
VoiLa’s UK launch adds another major market to the
80 million page-per-month portal which has already been
introduced to Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, the U.S. and Canada. It first appeared in
France in July 1998.
France Telecom says that Voila’s international strategy
is founded on the two main principles of having strong
search tools and local content.
VoiLa will have a UK directory, together with a unique
search facility that uses thematic search engine (TSE)
technology. This allows users to search for information
on specific topics, retrieving only those URLs that
are relevant.
For the UK market, VoiLa has established partnerships
with other information providers, including Sports.com,
The British Tourist Authority, Simply Food, Popcorn
and Auto Trader.
France Telecom’s other major European Internet brand
is Wanadoo, the
major Internet service in France. With 47 million
pages served each month, Wanadoo offers Yellow Pages,
road routes, e-commerce and many other facilities.
France Telecom, which had revenues of 24.6 billion euros
($25 billion) in 1998, operates in more than 50
countries.
