Microsoft to buy ciao.com price comparison firm

Microsoft has agreed to buy Greenfield Online, owner of European price comparison website ciao.com, for about €330 million to boost its internet search and e-commerce business in Europe.

Microsoft, whose €31.9 billion bid to buy Yahoo earlier this year failed after a protracted battle, said the acquisition should benefit its Live Search platform.

Internet search is dominated by Google, which has 62 per cent of the global search market and 79 per cent in Europe, according to the most recent data published by web usage tracker ComScore.

Microsoft has a two per cent market share in Europe and nine per cent worldwide, behind both Google and Yahoo.

In Europe, Microsoft is also outranked by online auction site eBay and Russia's Yandex.

"The team at Ciao has built a passionate consumer community based on intuitive technology and extensive merchant relationships that we believe will deliver incremental benefit to the Microsoft Live Search platform," said Microsoft's vice president for Windows and online services, Tami Reller.

Ciao.com offers advice on purchases, mainly of consumer electronics, and encourages users to join a network of shopping experts to share opinions. It makes its revenues from e-commerce, merchant referrals and advertising sales.

Microsoft said it had agreed to sell off Greenfield Online's main business, which surveys consumer opinion online and sells the results to market researchers, to an unnamed financial buyer.

The companies expect both deals to close during the fourth quarter of this year.

Completion of the Greenfield sale to Microsoft does not de-pend on Microsoft's disposal of the online survey business, the two companies said.