MAKATI City, Philippines -- After 120 days of local preparation, Yahoo! Philippines has finally established an office in Manila, becoming the Internet giant’s second 100-percent owned subsidiary in Southeast Asia after Singapore.

The local Yahoo! office is looking at employing between 10 and 15 people, according to Jojo Añonuevo, General Manager of Philippine Operations for Yahoo! Southeast Asia. Añonuevo added that 20 percent of Yahoo! Singapore employees are Filipinos. The Yahoo! Philippines office is located at Fort Bonifacio Global City.

Based on internal Yahoo! metrics and surveys, 85 percent of Filipinos in the Philippines use Yahoo! platforms. However, the company has not yet partnered with an independent research company to calculate its traffic.

“We know a lot of Filipinos globally use Yahoo! content, but we are not able to break down the exact number of usage per market per country,” said Añonuevo. “We are still working with Nielsen Research to conduct research in the Philippines in conjunction with Internet associations in the Philippines to give us a third-party breakdown of these numbers.”

Añonuevo predicts a double-digit growth in the Philippines in terms of revenue. Yahoo! has three main objectives to generate revenue locally but is primarily banking on online advertising.

The first of the three objectives is to make Yahoo! the starting point for most consumers so that the service would be top-of-mind in their every online experience. For example, Yahoo! has developed mobile services in partnership with Sun Cellular and Smart Communications for the Yahoo! oneSearch mobile application.

Due to the popularity of social networking in the Philippines, Yahoo! Philippines is also looking at partnering with social networking sites.

“We are already in discussions with Friendster and other social networking sites to merge Yahoo! Messenger functions in their pages. There are some functionalities in Yahoo! Messenger that a Friendster user would want," Añonuevo said.

The company’s second objective is to become a "must-buy" for most advertisers by providing various platforms that would be viable choices for advertising and campaigns. In connection with this, Yahoo! Philippines has come up with Yahoo! Sponsored Search for Filipino businesses and advertisers. This advertising product enables small to large Philippine businesses potentially reach 53 million new customers in Southeast Asia.

The third objective is to become a "partner of choice" by providing favorable platforms for publishers and developers. For example, in April, the beta version of Yahoo! Philippine news was launched.