Yahoo opens its Polish account
The first step is 1GB e-mail accounts. At the portal's main website you can already click on a link to the Polish version of Yahoo, but for the time being it redirects to its UK counterpart.
"The launch of [1GB] e-mail accounts by Yahoo! is not a revolution in itself," says Paweł Wujec, one of the managers of the Gazeta.pl portal, "but if they add more services, they could win a strong position on our market." In many larger European countries, Yahoo operates fully equipped native language portals, but the company would not say whether this will happen in Poland in the future.
Yahoo is not the first international player to try to conquer the Polish online market, and it can take little solace from how its predecessors fared. The April debut of auction giant eBay was far from successful. It is striving to compete with the well-established Polish Allegro site and few internet users are eager to switch to the services of the newcomer. There are also rumors of Google planning to open an office in Warsaw.
There were nine million internet users in Poland at the end of 2004 according to a survey conducted by Megapanel PBI/Gemius. The most widely used websites include those dealing with instant messaging, e-commerce, news and entertainment. Among Polish internet portals, Onet.pl and Wirtualna Polska occupy the leading positions.
"The launch of [1GB] e-mail accounts by Yahoo! is not a revolution in itself," says Paweł Wujec, one of the managers of the Gazeta.pl portal, "but if they add more services, they could win a strong position on our market." In many larger European countries, Yahoo operates fully equipped native language portals, but the company would not say whether this will happen in Poland in the future.
Yahoo is not the first international player to try to conquer the Polish online market, and it can take little solace from how its predecessors fared. The April debut of auction giant eBay was far from successful. It is striving to compete with the well-established Polish Allegro site and few internet users are eager to switch to the services of the newcomer. There are also rumors of Google planning to open an office in Warsaw.
There were nine million internet users in Poland at the end of 2004 according to a survey conducted by Megapanel PBI/Gemius. The most widely used websites include those dealing with instant messaging, e-commerce, news and entertainment. Among Polish internet portals, Onet.pl and Wirtualna Polska occupy the leading positions.
