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Yahoo not afraid of Google's competition

"Yahoo is a company that has always had good competitors and Google will be a good competitor".

"There is plenty of room for Yahoo to thrive and for Google to thrive," Semel told reporters on the sidelines of a Milken Institute conference.

Chief Executive and Chairman Terry Semel on Tuesday shrugged off the possibility that a widely anticipated public offering by search engine operator Google Inc. would hurt the older Web company.

Yahoo has an estimated 5 percent stake in Google, which is expected this week to announce plans for an initial public stock offering that could value the company at around $20 billion.

But Yahoo also has expanded far beyond its core portal business. Last year, the Sunnyvale, California-based company invested more than $1 billion in acquisitions to challenge Google in the lucrative business of Web search and key-word advertising.

Google, meanwhile, recently announced plans to get into the free e-mail business now dominated by Yahoo and Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) MSN Internet unit.

Semel, a former Hollywood studio head credited with diversifying and reigniting revenues at Yahoo, told a panel at the conference that the nature of search was also changing as customers looked for search engines to allow comparison shopping across the Internet rather than approaching a host site as a place to buy.

"Search has become a lot more than we think of search," he said.

Source: Reuters

Posted by nakul at April 28, 2004 07:23 AM | TrackBack