Yahoo had attracted the attention of media after becoming the first navigational guide online, which turn it into more advertisements. The main goal of the Yahoo was to be the starting point on internet for users and develop the company as the must buy element for the advertisers. Yahoo initially organized everything and managed thigs properly for achieving the target and target 180 million new visitors back in 2000. It is the web service provider, located in California. It is known across the globe for the Web portal, Yahoo Directory, Yahoo search engine, Yahoo finance, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo groups, online mapping, advertising, video sharing, social media websites, and fantasy sports. In its initial days, it was one of the most successful sites across United States.
In 2016, Yahoo was mostly used for the media website and news, and had approximately 7 billion views monthly (Similarweb, 2018; Collins, 2018). However, due to tough competition in the market, Yahoo started to lose its market share in some areas. It is necessary for the company to evaluate its product and service portfolio, to make effective decision and get back its leading position in the industry. BCG matrix can help the company with this. Here is the detailed BCG matrix of Yahoo;
Cash Cows
This is the quadrant comprise of high market share and low market growth rate. This makes them the prime revenue generator of the company. The revenue earned by this category is used for other operational and management areas and functions. The company needs to milk this category constantly for retaining the position. Yahoo news is considered as the Cash cow in United States, as many consumers prefer to keep themselves updated with the web and Yahoo provides latest news (Search Engine land, 2018).
Stars
This quadrant’s name clearly demonstrate the features of the products. The items in this category have high market share and high market growth rate. They are not the major earner of the company, but still earns more than the cash they consume. Companies implement effective approaches and invest in the category to turn it into cash cow, to earn more profit. Yahoo is consider as star item in United States, with 74%of market share and 5% of market growth. If the company invest well it could be turn into cash cow (Kirchner, 2013).
Question Marks
This quadrant is also known as Problem child, which means the product has high market growth but low market share. This clearly reflects on more consumption of cash as the investment than the profit they generate. The company needs to pay attention to this domain, because if not then this could be turn into a burden for the company. Yahoo is at the question mark stage in Europe, Middle East and Africa with highest growth of 25% and 3% of market share. This means, other search websites are mostly used rather than Yahoo (Kirchner, 2013).
Dogs
The items in this category are the burden for the company, which means they have low market growth and market share. This shows that the items in this category are mostly on breakeven stage, where if they are not making profit, then they are not making loss either. The product in this category needs to be taken care of attentively or else the operations must be shut down. Search marketing of Yahoo can be in the dog category, as the company is losing its market share with Bing. Consumers are switching to Bing. Yahoo needs to put extra efforts in this area to retain the customer base, or else soon it will be shut (Mackey, 2010).
References
Collins, J. 2018. Everything you need to know about Yahoo. [Online], Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-yahoo-3483209, [Accessed on: 10th September, 2018].
Kirchner, M. 2013. Yahoo. [Online], Available at: https://prezi.com/_dmixekz23wo/yahoo/, [Accessed on: 10th September, 2018].
Mackey, M. 2010. Has Yahoo search marketing become a dog? [Online], Available at: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2048764/has-yahoo-search-marketing-become-a-dog, [Accessed on: 10th September, 2018].
Search Engine land. Yahoo search engine land guide. [Online], Available at: https://searchengineland.com/guide/yahoo, [Accessed on: 10th September, 2018].
Similar web, 2018. Yahoo.com analytics. [Online], Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/website/yahoo.com, [Accessed on: 10th September, 2018].