Huffington Post to launch its India edition with Times Group

The website is slated to go live later this year.

Huffington Post, the US-based online news aggregator, has tied-up with The Times of India Group to launch its Indian edition later this year. The English-language website will combine The Huffington Post's news and blogging platform with the local expertise and reach of The Times of India Group. It is targeting India's rapidly expanding Internet user base, which is expected to reach 370 million by 2015.

The announcement was made by Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group and Satyan Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet, the digital arm of The Times of India. "I'm delighted to launch HuffPost India, which will be our 12th edition since we began our international expansion three years ago," says Huffington. "I'm extremely grateful for the chance to bring HuffPost to India to tell the stories that matter most - and just as important, to help people throughout India tell their stories themselves, in words, in pictures and in video."

"We are excited to combine HuffPost's world-class product with our local reach with consumers and advertisers to tailor-make a great new destination for Indian consumers," comments Gajwani. "As the world's largest democracy, and with a middle class of more than 250 million people, India is a critical destination for any global media company," notes Huffington Post Media Group CEO Jimmy Maymann. "And with Indian household consumption predicted to continue to grow nearly 20 per cent per year, this partnership gives us an ideal entry into what is expected to become the world's fifth-largest consumer market within the next ten years," he adds

The Huffington Post and The Times of India Group will establish an editorial team based in New Delhi. The Huffington Post has 86 million monthly global unique visitors (desktop only, comScore, June 2014). A part of AOL Inc, it has editions in the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, Maghreb, Germany, Brazil and South Korea.

Times Local Partners (TLP) is a business unit - developed in 2013 - that partners with emerging global digital businesses to build local partnerships, having partnered with brands like Business Insider, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, IGN, AskMen, and more.