Gradually, the big web brands are learning the secrets of the mobile world. Facebook is increasingly confident, 15 months on from an IPO blighted by doubts over its ability to turn its huge cellular traffic into gold. Now, even ailing Yahoo is claiming breakthroughs in the vital wireless space.
Almost a year into her tenure, CEO Marissa Mayer says the company is making good progress towards the most important goal she set last summer, to increase usage of Yahoo web services on mobile devices. This is critical to offset the decline of the firm’s online advertising business.
At the annual shareholders’ conference, Mayer was buoyed by a rising stock price and focused heavily on examples of mobile improvements, such as the new weather app, which she boasted was now a top five weather app in 121 countries. The steady revamping of key mobile services bearing fruit, she said, with daily active users of Yahoo Mail up by over 70% since this was redesigned last year, and use of the Flickr photo offering up by 50% since it had a facelift last month.
Yahoo is boosted by its large stage in Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, but its core business continues to come under intense pressure. It has only 3.4% of the online advertising space now, and researchers at Emarketer think that will fall to 3.1% this year, in sad contrast to Google’s 33%.
Hence the urgent focus on reinventing the platform for mobility. The firm recently spent $1.1bn acquiring blogging site Tumblr, which will increase Yahoo’s audience by 50% to more than 1bn monthly visitors, increasing traffic by about 20%, according to the buyer. And it is bidding to buy video website Hulu, both strategies pointing to the development, belatedly, of a fully fledged web and media platform spanning smartphones, tablets and TVs as well as PCs.
Mayer has purchased 11 companies during her leadership so far, most related to that platform push ‘ they include mobile app developers Stamped and Jybe, and news reading app Summly. The next dilemma ‘ as for Facebook ‘ is how far to try to undermine the arch-enemy, Google, and how far to work with Android and ride on its huge market presence. Facebook has been indecisive about how far to deliver its own full user experience, sidelining Google’s brand and services even on Android, and Yahoo will have similar decisions to make.
After Mayer’s presentation, Yahoo shares rose by their highest amount in eight months, by 3.7% to $24.96, and they have gained 25% this year so far ‘ and 50% since Mayer took the helm.