Shares of Indian search engine JustDial Ltd surged almost 20% in early trading on Friday morning after a media report said Google was in talks with the company to buy it, Reuters reported.
The National Stock Exchange asked for a clarification from JustDial about the report, NDTV reported. JustDial responded a few hours later saying there was no proposal “in respect of acquisition of business of Just Dial by Google”. It said in its clarification that the report published in the Business Standard was “factually incorrect”.
On Friday, a report in the newspaper said Internet giant Google has been talking to the Mumbai-based JustDial for around two months. “It may take some more time before the discussions are finalised,” the report quoted an investment banker as saying. Google and Just Dial have not yet responded to the Business Standard report.
Around 70% of JustDial’s traffic comes through Google, the report said. But Google Maps and Google’s aggregator app called Areo is also giving JustDial tough competition. For Google, buying JustDial will give it a ready database of 20 million listings across India, the report said.
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