Let’s Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Google competes with Yahoo! in almost all its businesses and also outclasses in most of them. According to a survey, Yahoo! Mail has slightly more desktop users than Gmail, but Gmail’s mobile apps drives a lot of traffic which has not been accounted for. Google’s search engine is the leader in the market, as it provides more relevant information and saves time compared to its competitors.
The company also rules the online advertising market with more than 41% market share while Yahoo! managed a paltry 8.4% and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) 5.8 % in 2012, according to eMarketer. The striking point about these numbers is that Facebook is gaining market share while Yahoo!’s market share is declining.
Google provides each of its advertisers a tool to track the number of views on each of their ads displayed which helps them in analyzing and interpreting the performance of their advertisements. Facebook, with its latest technology called conversion tracking, puts itself a step ahead of Google. Conversion tracking helps the advertisers to know how many clicks actually converted into sales which can help them redesign their advertisements to the taste of the consumers to maximize sales.
Calling Google’s Android operating system as the heart of smartphones wouldn’t be an exaggeration. Smartphones have a very wide telescoping market and with no other parallel mobile application, Google comes out as a clear winner on this front too. Thus, the company has a dominant market position in most of its businesses which guarantees good flow of operating cash.
Let’s face it
Since getting listed, Facebook was not seen as very high revenue generating social networking site, as users were not willing to pay money for being in touch with their friends. But the company has found other modes of generating revenue. As mentioned above, its advertisement market is consistently emerging. It is growing at a pace of 15% annually.
Moreover, the social networking site makes a lot of money from the ads that they show while people play online games. It is consistently trying to monetize its large human database and after going through the numbers, and it seems it has been successful to a certain extent.
Foolish final
Yahoo! is trying to turn around its operations under the guidance of its new CEO to make itself a profitable investment. Yahoo! Sports and Yahoo! Finance have the potential to become very popular on mobile devices if the company expands its operation in this field. The company currently looks more stable than it has been for the last five years, and it seems to be the right time for long-term value investors to purchase it.
The article This Company Is Looking to Reclaim Its Lost Glory originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by tarun bachhawat.
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