Vizzavi grabs 19,000 new customers a day

NEWS While better known rivals in the portal market are struggling for survival, Vizzavi said yesterday that its customer base had reached 5.3 million in October, a rise of 30 per cent for the month. The portal company, jointly owned by Vivendi of France and the UK's Vodafone, attributed its success to aggressive promotion and customers brought in through its recent acquisition of Spanish portal, Navegalia. Vizzavi recorded 4.8 million page views per day during October and was registering 19,000 new users per day. The news contrasts sharply with events elsewhere in the portal market. In the last two months, Altavista has been forced to lay off 30 per cent of its staff while Excite@home went out of business