Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has been on a tear with acquisitions recently. The company is heavily disciplined about cutting back on operating costs, returning cash to shareholders, and driving user-driven metrics to its websites. It seems to be on track with meeting many of its goals as CEO, Marissa Mayer, has been out on a web 3.0 land grab.
The CEO’s most recent acquisition
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) just recently acquired Xobni. The company released an application/program that allows a user to effectively centralize all of their data and contacts within a single location. This is becoming increasingly important because it has become difficult to centralize contact information between all of the different social networks, e-mail clients, and personal contact lists that users create.
In its most recent shareholder meeting, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) reported that it was able to grow mail user activity by 10% (no time frame was mentioned). However, the integration of Xobni with Yahoo! Mail will improve the amount of user activity on Yahoo! Mail.
Investors should remain fairly optimistic because Mayer continues to deliver on her promise to improve the amount of display-advertising revenue.
How to position
For the most part, I am optimistic about Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s growth. The company plans to improve the amount of net operating income it generates from its operations. By Yahoo! improving its net operating income, the company is able to acquire more companies. The benefits are twofold because the company is now focused on buying innovation rather than depending on innovation from within. It’s more predictable to go and buyout talent than it is to groom it. After all, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was invented by a small group of Harvard dropouts, not by International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM).
Analysts on a consensus basis estimate that the company will grow earnings by 13.7% per year over the next five years. The growth rate is fairly sustainable when considering the company’s disciplined approach to cutting costs, and its focus to improve the overall website experience of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO).
Will this ruffle Google’s feathers?
Source: Statista
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is far ahead of the competition. Currently Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are the most dominant web browsers in the world. By default, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome will use Google search. This leads to better monetization opportunities for Google through Google AdWords. The Google AdWords business is currently growing, as the segment was able to report 18% year-over-year growth in the most recent quarter.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s growth is also likely to be supplemented through Android. The Android operating system appeals to an overwhelming percentage of smartphone users across the world. Because of this, analysts have projected Google to grow sales by 41.2% in the current fiscal year, and 16.9% in the following fiscal year.
Yahoo’s! positioning improves
Investors should taper their expectations of Yahoo’s! future. What I mean is that Mayer’s strategy is aimed at gradually shifting the overall perception of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and its product platform. There won’t be a magic switch that will turn on a rapid increase in the usage of Yahoo! search or Yahoo! mail. The company is aiming to improve its position gradually against major competitors like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), and Bing.
