Terra Networks S.A. Friday bought
Venezuelan portal Chevere, effectively
entering its ninth global market.
Chevere, which boasts 3 million pageviews per month as of February, joins
the Terra stable of Latin American portals which includes representation in
Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Guatemala and the U.S.
With the exception of the Argentina market, Terra (TRRA) also operates as an ISP in each of the countries. The Telefonica-owned
Internet company says it has 1.3 million ISP customers and a total of 434
million pageviews per day from 38 million users at its network of portals.
Its service in Brazil unveiled a free ISP offering in January.
Chevere was founded in 1996 by three young entrepreneurs and claims to have indexed 11,000
local sites, hosts e-mail, and offers a chat service. The portal claims to
have 600,000 users.
Terra will continue to introduce new portals in other Latin American
countries, the company said.
The company’s interests have also recently broadened to include online
banking, with the introduction of uno-e,
and online auctions, taking 40 percent stake of Latin American auctioneer
DeRemate.com last month. Terra will
also be participating in Sun Microsystem’s
(SUNW)
early access program for StarPortal in the eight countries where Terra
operates.
