OPTUS STEPS UP DIGITAL DRIVE WITH EATABILITY ACQUISITION

Optus today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire 100 per cent of Eatability Pty Limited, one of Australia’s leading restaurant and review websites, for A$6 million.

The acquisition is central to Optus’ strategy of providing more localised digital content and services for the Australian market and will be a strong foundation for future transaction-based business and mobile services in the lifestyle category.

Launched in 2003 by husband and wife team Celeste and Hui Ong, Eatability has grown to become one of Australia’s leading restaurant directory and review websites. With more than 235,000 restaurant reviews and 37,000 restaurant listings, Eatability is a popular website for Australian diners looking for recommendations on where to eat out.

Mr Austin R. Bryan, Vice President, Communities & Eco-systems, Group Digital L!fe, said, “Over the last nine years, Eatability has established itself as a leading, trusted website for restaurant reviews and ratings and is a key Optus partner, providing content for our Optus Go Places mobile app.

We’re delighted to welcome Eatability into the Optus digital family and look forward to working with Celeste, Hui and the team to bring even greater functionality to Eatability users.”

Under the agreement, which is subject to approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board, Eatability will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Optus. Today’s announcement follows the SingTel Group’s recent acquisition of Singapore’s leading food portal, HungryGoWhere, and forms part of the SingTel Group’s strategy to build a stable of local digital services across the region.

“Our objective is to make it easy for users ‘on the go’ to discover what’s happening around them. By acquiring Eatability, we have secured a critical building block to deliver a highly engaging and distinctive local digital application. More importantly, we will be taking this application to the next level by extending it to smartphones, making it personalised and contextually relevant, as well as introducing an element of magic and serendipity into the customer experience,” Mr Loo Cheng Chuan, Head, Local L!fe, Group Digital L!fe said.

Mr Hui Ong, Co-founder of Eatability said, “We’re excited to be joining Optus and the SingTel Group and to be given the opportunity to further grow Eatability with their support.”

Media contacts:
Jacqui Christie
Optus Corporate Affairs
Tel: (02) 8082 7846