Dow in biz news pact with Airtel

Dow Jones has announced an exclusive tie-up with Bharti Airtel to distribute financial and business news, both global and India-specific, from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones’ wire services.

Dow Jones has announced an exclusive tie-up with Bharti Airtel to distribute financial and business news, both global and India-specific, from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones’ wire services. This will be available in two parts — the first part free for Airtel subscribers and the second part more exclusive at a monthly payment of Rs 99. The second part will also include a portfolio tracker.

HT Image

“Our pricing is quite competitive, considering that some of the services offering mobile portfolio tracking charge Rs 99 just for that service,” said Mitya New, managing director, Dow Jones India, in an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times. The target audience for the mobile application includes people in senior and middle management levels in industry, entrepreneurs and business school students aspiring to get into corporate jobs.

The Dow Jones-WSJ content will also include videos, lifestyle and technology news and information, besides job information through a tie-up with Naukri.com and travel information through a Yatra.com tie-up. Airtel subscribers with GPRS-enabled handsets will be able to access the application, called The Wall Street Journal India Mobile application.

New said, parent company News Corporation’s focus on India through Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal will break the mould on what it has done globally. “We are not going to offer any of our standard global products in India. We don’t have this kind of domestic focus in our content anywhere else in the world.”

Another strategic decision, he added, “is all about addressing the bottom of the pyramid with our business-to-business and business-to-consumer products. We have observed that those multinational businesses who did not address the large volume market in India have either not done well or remained niche.”

On why the application is not being offered through all major operators, New said: “If we limit ourselves to one service, we get focused attention. Besides, Airtel is the largest service.”

He was quick to add that Dow Jones was not avoiding opportunities with other operators. However, he agreed that there was an exclusivity clause in Dow Jones’ contract with Airtel, which has a specific time frame, which he declined to divulge. “We will get a lot of marketing and branding attention from the operator we work exclusively with. Other operators will be keen to work with us in the future,” New concluded.