Yahoo put of lot of effort and investment
toward presenting a new Yahoo to the world in
2013, and a lot of that has hinged on improving
its mobile business. There have been significant
updates to old apps; over a dozen (out of a total
of 28) mobile-related acquisitions to pick up
talent, technology and products; and tests for
what Yahoo should focus on next. But even as
it has managed to grow its mobile audience this
year, Yahoo is exiting 2013 on a mobile low
note: not one of its apps is in the top 100 chart
on the iTunes App Store.
This dearth of winners is a sign of how, despite
all the effort, Yahoo has not (yet?) managed to
tap into a 'breakthrough' app that has remained
a perennial favorite, with the downloads to
prove it. Nevermind the new-look apps, and the
out with the old, in with the new logo: Yahoo!
remains Yahoo!
As a point of comparison, consider how other
app publishers are faring in Apple's top 100:
Google has five apps (Google Search, Google
Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Chrome).
Facebook has three (Facebook, Facebook
Messenger, Instagram). Twitter has two (Twitter
and Vine). And a number of companies like
Microsoft (Skype), Netflix, Amazon, eBay,
Pinterest, Snapchat, Uber — "even fucking
Groupon," as one observer noted to us — have
one apiece.
(Tumblr, acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion
and with its own recent update, also failed to
make the cut. According to AppAnnie, it's
currently at No. 110.)
So what's going on here? You could argue
Yahoo has yet to tap into a blockbuster on the
platform it has chosen as its primary one, and as
a result is finishing 2013 not with a mobile bang
but a whimper.
"It is very clear that whatever they are doing
over there is not working because people have
spoken and they do not want Yahoo's apps on
their mobile," our observer notes.
What is worth pointing out, though, are a
couple of important caveats, which either will
help Yahoo buy time, or may prove to be a
strategy in its own right.
While Yahoo may not have a single bona-fide
hit on its hands, what it is doing is spreading its
bets, doing alright (if not brilliantly) on
Android, and continuing to get repeat usage
among those who have already downloaded its
apps.
Comscore, according to its latest U.S.
smartphone usage statistics from earlier this
month (October 2013 figures) notes that Yahoo
is the third most-popular property behind
Google and Facebook on smartphones, with a
reach of nearly 78 percent, some 11 percentage
points behind Google. Yahoo has managed to
hold on to that No. 3 spot for a while now,
although its reach has declined compared to the
previous few months (eg September: 82.2
percent reach; August: 83.2 percent).
Although Yahoo has long been making efforts
to streamline its presence on mobile, Yahoo
currently has 15 apps in the U.S. App Store (16
if you count Tumblr).
Using App Annie's historical data, you can see
that within individual categories like Weather,
News and Sports, Yahoo has been consistent at
the top of the rankings, even as its overall
standing for each app has fluctuated with spikes
around updates. I've included the figures on
Android where they are available.
Yahoo Mail:
(iOS)
(Android)
Yahoo (News):
Yahoo Weather:
(iOS)
(Android)
Yahoo Sports (formerly Sportacular):
Flickr:
Less successful (and a sign of how video will
need a lot more focus if Yahoo indeed makes
this a core focus of its revenue and audience
growth) is Yahoo Screen:
Yahoo Screen:
Most-downloaded versus most-used
Interestingly, none of these apps make it to the
most-used app rankings as detailed by
comScore.
Instead, its most recent figures note that Yahoo
Stocks (a widget perhaps, since there is no
standalone app by that name, unless comScore
means Yahoo Finance), and Yahoo's Weather
Widget (not app) are the company's most
popular smartphone apps at the moment,
respectively ranking 9th and 11th, with reaches
of 29.9 percent and 23.6 percent. They are
separated by Instagram, which has a reach of
25.5 percent.
What this also implies is that installed usage
may not always correlate to downloads, too. But
it also muddles something: monetizing
something like Snapchat or Instagram is likely
to be a whole lot bigger of an opportunity than
monetizing a weather widget.
In November 2013, Yahoo's CEO Marissa
Mayer said the company had 400 million
monthly active users on mobile, compared to
the 390 million the company noted a month
before, and the 350 million Mayer noted during
the TC Disrupt conference in September. This
points to an audience that continues to increase,
if slowly.
Can Yahoo sustain that growth with its current
mobile portfolio, and is it enough to translate to
wider financial success for the company? Mayer
has said in the past that getting to where Yahoo
would like to be could take another three to four
years.
The question is whether its lack of popularity so
far is simply a premature red herring, or a sign
of more lacklustre things to come.
toward presenting a new Yahoo to the world in
2013, and a lot of that has hinged on improving
its mobile business. There have been significant
updates to old apps; over a dozen (out of a total
of 28) mobile-related acquisitions to pick up
talent, technology and products; and tests for
what Yahoo should focus on next. But even as
it has managed to grow its mobile audience this
year, Yahoo is exiting 2013 on a mobile low
note: not one of its apps is in the top 100 chart
on the iTunes App Store.
This dearth of winners is a sign of how, despite
all the effort, Yahoo has not (yet?) managed to
tap into a 'breakthrough' app that has remained
a perennial favorite, with the downloads to
prove it. Nevermind the new-look apps, and the
out with the old, in with the new logo: Yahoo!
remains Yahoo!
As a point of comparison, consider how other
app publishers are faring in Apple's top 100:
Google has five apps (Google Search, Google
Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Chrome).
Facebook has three (Facebook, Facebook
Messenger, Instagram). Twitter has two (Twitter
and Vine). And a number of companies like
Microsoft (Skype), Netflix, Amazon, eBay,
Pinterest, Snapchat, Uber — "even fucking
Groupon," as one observer noted to us — have
one apiece.
(Tumblr, acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion
and with its own recent update, also failed to
make the cut. According to AppAnnie, it's
currently at No. 110.)
So what's going on here? You could argue
Yahoo has yet to tap into a blockbuster on the
platform it has chosen as its primary one, and as
a result is finishing 2013 not with a mobile bang
but a whimper.
"It is very clear that whatever they are doing
over there is not working because people have
spoken and they do not want Yahoo's apps on
their mobile," our observer notes.
What is worth pointing out, though, are a
couple of important caveats, which either will
help Yahoo buy time, or may prove to be a
strategy in its own right.
While Yahoo may not have a single bona-fide
hit on its hands, what it is doing is spreading its
bets, doing alright (if not brilliantly) on
Android, and continuing to get repeat usage
among those who have already downloaded its
apps.
Comscore, according to its latest U.S.
smartphone usage statistics from earlier this
month (October 2013 figures) notes that Yahoo
is the third most-popular property behind
Google and Facebook on smartphones, with a
reach of nearly 78 percent, some 11 percentage
points behind Google. Yahoo has managed to
hold on to that No. 3 spot for a while now,
although its reach has declined compared to the
previous few months (eg September: 82.2
percent reach; August: 83.2 percent).
Although Yahoo has long been making efforts
to streamline its presence on mobile, Yahoo
currently has 15 apps in the U.S. App Store (16
if you count Tumblr).
Using App Annie's historical data, you can see
that within individual categories like Weather,
News and Sports, Yahoo has been consistent at
the top of the rankings, even as its overall
standing for each app has fluctuated with spikes
around updates. I've included the figures on
Android where they are available.
Yahoo Mail:
(iOS)
(Android)
Yahoo (News):
Yahoo Weather:
(iOS)
(Android)
Yahoo Sports (formerly Sportacular):
Flickr:
Less successful (and a sign of how video will
need a lot more focus if Yahoo indeed makes
this a core focus of its revenue and audience
growth) is Yahoo Screen:
Yahoo Screen:
Most-downloaded versus most-used
Interestingly, none of these apps make it to the
most-used app rankings as detailed by
comScore.
Instead, its most recent figures note that Yahoo
Stocks (a widget perhaps, since there is no
standalone app by that name, unless comScore
means Yahoo Finance), and Yahoo's Weather
Widget (not app) are the company's most
popular smartphone apps at the moment,
respectively ranking 9th and 11th, with reaches
of 29.9 percent and 23.6 percent. They are
separated by Instagram, which has a reach of
25.5 percent.
What this also implies is that installed usage
may not always correlate to downloads, too. But
it also muddles something: monetizing
something like Snapchat or Instagram is likely
to be a whole lot bigger of an opportunity than
monetizing a weather widget.
In November 2013, Yahoo's CEO Marissa
Mayer said the company had 400 million
monthly active users on mobile, compared to
the 390 million the company noted a month
before, and the 350 million Mayer noted during
the TC Disrupt conference in September. This
points to an audience that continues to increase,
if slowly.
Can Yahoo sustain that growth with its current
mobile portfolio, and is it enough to translate to
wider financial success for the company? Mayer
has said in the past that getting to where Yahoo
would like to be could take another three to four
years.
The question is whether its lack of popularity so
far is simply a premature red herring, or a sign
of more lacklustre things to come.
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