Rediff has said it will list on the Nasdaq. How will a US listing help the company?
The Nasdaq listing is quite far away mid or late next year. On the Nasdaq and in the US in general, brand and product companies are valued much more than service companies. An example of a brand would be Yahoo!, Microsoft would be a product company. They are valued much higher than a service company like EDS. The US markets are extremely objective in their valuations they aredependent entirely on future prospects, not on past performance. Even valuations of internet companies are based on how well-managed they are. US stock analysts don't look only at the profit after tax (PAT), they look into non-financial parameters. They have very strong metrics. If we can deliver these, I am sure we will get an appropriate value.

Rediff has been benchmarked against international internet companies like Yahoo! and Amazon. Will it also command a similar premium on the Nasdaq?
Technology companies are valued better in the US than here. They are more familiar with internet and e-commerce. There will be some difference in valuation compared to Yahoo! or Amazon because investors prefer a local company. We plan to be very visible in the US we have one million unique visitors (every month) from the US who come to our site multiple times.

You have said Rediff would also opt for a simultaneous listing in the Indian market. Will internet stocks be as hot here, considering the companyis likely to start making profits only after three years or so?
We are an Indian company and we would like to list in India. We have a very large user base that is going to be our strength. Our users will be our investors. This is the key to the success of companies like Yahoo! who have 5,000 to 6,000 retail investors. I believe there would also be sizable FII interest. The market for internet companies has not yet been tested, but software companies are doing very well. Two-thirds of our e-commerce revenue is from outside India even today. It is true, internet companies have to invest in building market share for at least three years. This precludes any profits for that period.

What kind of competition do you foresee from US portal sites like Yahoo! which are planning to launch services targeted at Indians? How will it impact Rediff?
Many international players will come to India: Yahoo!, AOL (America Online), Lycos there are eight to 10 of them. Competition will be formidable. In asense competition is already there when someone puts their home page in Rediff, they are making a conscious decision in choosing us over geocities or tripod. We are preparing for it (competition) and I hope we are good when it comes.

What has been the response to your newly launched US edition?
Excellent with some asterisks. It is the first vehicle of expression for US Indians. We found readers were not interested in Indian politics they are clueless about it and nor do they want to know. These are second generation Indians. The 25 or so Indian American is totally different from the 25-year-old Indian. The Rediff US edition will not be like the US editions the Indian media has launched.

Is the success of Rediff a precursor to more quality Indian internet companies? Will we see more of them?
The Nasscom goal is to have 20 Indian companies on Nasdaq by March. If you are talking about India, 10 years from now 25 of the Sensex-30 will not exist. There are many good internet companiesin Mumbai and Bangalore. Most are very young today. In three years, they'd have evolved. Rediff is one of the grown-ups in this sector.

When will the subscriber base in India reach a critical mass?
There about a million internet users today. Not subscribers, but users. For every 100 people accessing the Net, 50 access it from their work place, 30 from homes, and 20 from cyber-cafes (as per a Rediff study in India). Any number above five million is critical mass.

The perception of using cable to deliver internet is gaining ground in India. Despite a lot of skepticism, ISPs are viewing this as means to increase their penetration. What are your views?
In the US, only 8 to 9 per cent of internet access is through cable. One of the advantages of cable is higher speed. But technology (like ADSL) is also invading telecom companies, making it possible for them to offer higher speeds. The vast majority of internet access will be through leased line or dial-up. Office internet access will bevery big and offices do not have cable.

A CII survey of top 318 firms found that most of them expect only 10 per cent of their turnover to come from e-commerce in two years. Has the potential of e-commerce been over-hyped?
You have to watch the figures very carefully. If you assume the music industry to be Rs 1,000 crore, even if 10 per cent of it comes online, it would be very significant. Financial services is another industry which is going online. In the US, 20 per cent of all retail stock trading is online. In three years, 20 per cent of trading will be online here.