Terra (Spain)

Terra is the internet portal owned by Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica. It has one of the largest global footprints of any internet portal. It is the #1 portal in Spanish and Portuguese language markets worldwide, operating in 18 countries in Latin America, as well as in Spain, where it is the local equivalent (and rival) to AOL and Yahoo. However the brand's status has been downgraded somewhat since the late 1990s, when Terra set out on an ultimately unsuccessful quest to become one of the the world's biggest internet companies. During the first internet boom Terra was spun out as a separate company, and mounted an ambitious but ill-fated takeover of US search engine Lycos.

Merged entity Terra Lycos had ambitions to be the world's most visited online destination, but persistently lagged far behind its American competitors in more lucrative English-speaking markets. From 2001 onwards the business suffered from the triple whammy of a weak internet sector, economic turmoil in its key region of South America, and the termination of a lucrative strategic alliance with Bertelsmann. In 2004 Telefonica sold the Lycos brand in all markets except Europe, and merged Terra back into its existing fixed line businesses.

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The Adbrands Company Profile of Terra summarises the company's history and current operations and also contains the following brand links:

Terra website

Terra	Invertia
Lycos Europe	Rumbo

Telefonica SA

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