By Suzanna Kerridge, 8 February 2000 16:03
NEWS AltaVista is to launch a French language search engine as the company continues to move into Europe. The company claims the site will offer 11 million French language pages with a daily renewal of two million pages. Altavista.fr claims it can attract one million subscribers and 200 million page impressions per month within the year after it launches on 15 February. The dot-com version currently holds 18 to 20 per cent of the 5.7 million users that log onto the Internet in France each month according to Pierre Paperon, director general, Altavista.fr. Paperon claims his company could increase that number to around 35 to 40 per cent to compete with current French Web site favourites, Vanadoo and Voila. But Jean-François Taugard, analyst, Strategy Partners in France, said the company was being optimistic. He claimed the Internet would not overtake the dominance of Minitel in French homes. "One of the big issues in France is that Minitel is very strong. A lot of companies are moving to the Internet but it is a cautious move," Taugard warned. Paperon agreed that Minitel had a strong hold on the market. However, he claimed that the barriers to Internet access in France were lifting. He said the influx of free ISPs, which account for 25 to 30 per cent of French access to the Internet, as well as substantial growth in mobile phone use meant the future for Minitel was limited.
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