Sanook.com in online jobs venture

Torboon Puangmaha, Sanook Online's chief executive officer, declined to give details of its business plan, but said the aim was to be a leading online recruitment service provider within three to five years.

He said online recruitment services in Thailand had great potential given the overall market value. The value of the online recruitment market, including service fees, is between Bt100 million and Bt200 million annually, but the scope for growth is huge because the value of the online market small compared with the total recruitment market valued at about Bt8 billion to Bt9 billion per year.

"Today, there are not many players in the market. We think there is huge room for us to take market share. With our strategy to work with a partner that is a regional player - JobStreet.com - we believe we can be the market leader within the next three to five years," said Torboon.

 Www.th.jobstreet.com has been on trial in recent months and has posted more than 10,000 jobs. To achieve its goal, it will tap the huge number of Sanook.com visitors, averaging 2 million hits per day. These visitors are mostly aged between 20 to 29, which is the main target group in terms of job seekers.

"It is our new service. We have provided classified job ads for direct sales and direct marketing as well as work at home, but the revenue generated has not been that much," said Torboon.

This year, Sanook.com aims to increase its revenue by 20 to 30 per cent, in line with the market. Of current total revenue, about 70 per cent comes from advertising banners and sales of advertising solutions, while 30 per cent comes from sources such as e-auction service fees.

Last year it joined hands with eBay to offer e-auctions and online shopping for individual users.

"We have transformed from being only a directory website on day one to a portal site, to now moving beyond being a portal. We want to see Sanook.com as the Internet population's oxygen, something that users have to have. Services with potential and in demand we will try to develop for our users," said Torboon.