Microsoft boosts shopping search with Ciao buy
- Added:
- Sep 01, 2008
Microsoft has agreed to buy Greenfield Online, owner European price comparison website ciao.com, for about $486m (£242m) to boost its Internet search and e-commerce business in Europe.
Microsoft, said acquisition will help it build a more consumer-friendly, results-oriented search engine.
For example, results of a Microsoft search for a particular camera model could include which prices were available from which retailers, and maps of where those retailers were, rather than just links to the manufacturer's and retailers' websites.
Microsoft also plans to reward consumers who buy products through its shopping sites by giving them cash back, extending a trial started in the US a few months ago.
Internet search is dominated by Google, which has 62 percent of the global search market and 79 percent in Europe, according to Web usage tracker ComScore.
Microsoft has a 2 percent market share in Europe and 9 percent worldwide, behind both Google and Yahoo. In Europe, Microsoft is also outranked by online auction site eBay and Russia's Yandex.
Caio.com is active in seven European countries and attracts 19.6 million unique visitors per month in Europe, more than twice as many as rival kelkoo.com, according to ComScore, thanks to its large network of members who contribute product reviews.
The companies expect both deals to close during the fourth quarter of 2008.
The acquisition follows those of Norwegian enterprise search company Fast for about $1.2 billion early this year and shopping-and-auction site jellyfish.com for an undisclosed sum last year.