IDT Europe - Corporate - Press Releases

NEWARK, N.J. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Jan. 19, 2000 - IDT Corp. (NASDAQ:IDTC - news) congratulates its partner, Terra Networks S.A. (NASDAQ: TRRA - news) on the launch of their new portal designed to service the U.S. Hispanic market. Terra is the Internet division of Telefonica, S.A., and the leading provider of Internet access in the Spanish-speaking world, and IDT Corporation is a leading multinational telecommunications company. The new portal will provide local and international content in Spanish for the US Hispanic market through IDT's national fiber optic network. As part of the arrangement the portal will be jointly owned by Terra and IDT. IDT initially will own 10 % of the portal. "The Spanish-speaking Internet market in the United States is largely untapped," said Howard Jonas, IDT Chairman and CEO, "this represents a potentially huge business opportunity for both Terra and IDT."

Today there are 31 million Hispanics in the United States, making the US the 5th largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. This market, according to Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA), has a buying power of $458 billion - greater than that of any Spanish-speaking Latin American nation.

In addition to the new portal, both companies are creating a joint-venture to develop and grow their Internet Service Provider (ISP) business. The new ISP business will target the 31 million Spanish speakers in the United States. Terra will own 51 percent and IDT 49 percent. IDT has contributed 46,000 dial-up customers and Terra will contribute $ 30-million to the joint-venture.

"We are enthusiastic about working with Terra and proud to be a partner in the portal and ISP joint-venture," said Jim Courter, IDT President.

"With Terra we can bring the Internet to all Hispanic households in the US and build on IDT's expertise in marketing to Hispanics. In addition to providing Spanish Internet services, IDT is one of the largest distributors of pre-paid phone cards to the Hispanic community."

IDT is a leading multinational carrier that combines its position as an international telecommunications operator with its experience as an Internet service provider to provide a broad range of telecommunications services to its wholesale and retail customers worldwide. Through it's own national telecommunications backbone and network infrastructure IDT provides its customers with integrated and competitively priced international and domestic long distance, pre-paid calling cards, Internet access and digital subscriber line (DSL) service.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Except for historical information, all of the expectations and assumptions contained in the foregoing are forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties. These statements refer to our plans to implement our growth strategy, improve our financial performance, expand our infrastructure, develop new products and services, expand our customer base and enter international markets. The forward looking statements also include our expectations concerning factors affecting the markets for our products, including the demand for long distance telecommunications, and Internet access services. These forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results that we anticipate. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those risks discussed in this release. In addition to the factors specifically noted in the forward looking statements, other important factors that could result in those differences include (a) general economic conditions in the telecommunications and Internet markets, including inflation, recession, interest rates, and other economic factors; (b) casualty to or other disruption of our facilities and operations; and (c) other factors that generally affect the business of telecommunications, Internet and other communications companies. We assume no obligation to update these forward looking statements or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from the results anticipated in the forward looking statements.