Twitter seals first India deal with ZipDial purchase

Twitter has made its first acquisition in India's booming consumer internet market with the purchase of Bangalore-based online "missed calls" marketing start-up ZipDial.

Founded in 2010, ZipDial helps major consumer brands such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever run consumer campaigns, in particular by allowing customers to register interest in promotions or advertisements by calling a telephone number, and then hanging up.

Known as a "missed call", the technique is popular in India as a means of allowing friends to keep in touch while avoiding the cost of a conversation. ZipDial built on the habit to allow callers to access free content, receive money-off coupons, or gain access to other special offers.

Twitter’s move makes it the latest in a string of US technology giants to take an interest in India’s burgeoning market for technology start-ups, following acquisitions last year by both Yahoo and Facebook.

It also comes amid rising excitement over India’s internet economy, following an array of major funding deals in 2014 as Silicon Valley-based investors pumped fresh capital into local start-ups in sectors ranging from e-retail to online taxi hailing apps.

Neither Twitter nor ZipDial commented on the size of the investment, although US news site Techcrunch, which first reported the potential deal earlier in January, cited sources putting the price tag at $30m-$40m.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015