The venerable white pages residential
telephone directory will no longer be distributed to homes in Laval. The annual
compilation of household phone numbers
and addresses has fallen victim an unstoppable trend toward Internet searches for
residential listings.
“Laval residents who still want one can easily obtain a copy by visiting
delivery.ypg.com or calling 1-800-268-
5637,” said André Leblanc, communication director for Le Groupe Pages Jaunes.
The firm used to be owned by Bell, but has
been an independent, publicly traded company since the telecoms giant spun it off in
2006.
“Obviously the internet has changed the
way that people look for local information,” he remarked.
internet penetration,” Leblanc explained.
“Yellowpages.ca plus, our mobile [phone]
application, has been downloaded 4.5 million times. It’s constantly ranked as one of
the most popular productivity applications
in Canada. We’re quite proud of that.”
He clarified that “The only thing that we
will be removing [from the print version of
the directory] is the residential numbers.”
Leblanc said that the alphabetical listing of local companies, which hitherto
appeared in the white pages, will now be
added to the yellow pages. He added that
the print edition of the business directory
remains extremely popular with
Canadians.
“On a monthly basis 41 per cent of
Canadians do a search of the book,” he
noted, “and 89 per cent of Canadians keep
the yellow pages in their homes. So it’s
still quite widely used.”