KEY POINTS:
The Yellow Pages Group has lost no time in announcing future plans following its $2.24 billion sale last month by Telecom.
As well as ditching the "pages" from the brand name, the company will be re-launching the yellow pages website in May and starting a new property publication later this year.
General manager Dudley Enoka said the company is aiming for one billion "look-ups" per year within five years across all its products, including the white and yellow pages in print and online, and the 018 directory service.
Enoka said the group currently receives around 630 million look-ups a year but has a goal of every New Zealander referring to a Yellow Pages product each day to achieve yearly revenue growth of seven to eight per cent.
The company spent last year collecting information from its 200,000 New Zealand business customers for the new website, including opening hours, street maps, driving directions, products and services, in exchange for a free website.
Enoka didn't see global search engines like Google and Yahoo as natural competitors. Currently 40 per cent of Yellow Pages traffic comes from Google searches.
"We believe that if local find-it is about local content, personalised information. We have that sitting within our business today and the global search engines can help people get to it," he said.
Competition from old owner Telecom has also been ruled out with a non-competition clause in the sale agreement.
The company also intends cashing in on the booming DIY and property market with a new magazine for the Auckland market called Yellow Front Door, blending editorial content with directory information.
The new owners, CCMP Capital Asia and Teachers Private Capital, have a successful track record in the directories industry and endorsed the new strategy, Enoka said.
"When they looked at this business what they saw was the potential to realise a lot of value that is currently sitting inside of our business plan," said Enoka.
* Sold in March for $2.24 billion to CCMP Capital Asia and Teachers Private Capital.
* Businesses include print and online White and Yellow pages, 018 directory service, New Zealand Tourism Online and the Retirement Guide.
* Last week White Pages online received 217,993 hits and Yellow Pages 170,647 according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
* Plans include a new Yellow Pages website and a property publication.
