In the first part of our analysis of a potential Microsoft – Yahoo combination, we looked at the implications of a hypothetical combination for the U.S. Hispanic digital media market. In the second part of our analysis, we look at the Latin American market and on how a potential combination would reshape both organizations.
What picture do we get if we aggregate Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s Latin American audiences?
According to the ComScore rankings for September 2011, Microsoft sites have 114.494 million unique users versus Yahoo´s 86.257 million uniques in Latin America. The total internet audience in LatAm is 124.492 million users and Microsoft sites are in the second place behind Google sites with 119 million uniques users. Both sites together (Yahoo! and Microsoft) have 200.7 million uniques although the real number is substantially lower as both properties audiences overlap substantially. In any case, the combined Microsoft and Yahoo audience would be substantially larger than the Google audience which is currently leading the ranking in the region.
So what is the bottom line? Is competition for Google good?
Definitely, as Anjanette Correa Diaz, Anjanette Correa Diaz Regional Trading and Accountability Director Latin America tells Ported. ”Competition for Google is healthy and more than welcome especially in Latin-American where it is time to growth more and more for "Search" marketing. This merge would be affecting (SEO) Strategies search engine optimization in a good way.”
But still Yahoo-Microsoft will have the work cut out for them….
You bet, As Jose Ruiz, Director, Latin America Advertising & Online, Oracle. puts it Microsoft would still have a lot of catch up to do as it would be tough to compete against the all mighty search king.
Where more? In Latin America or the U.S. Hispanic market?
“I think it's difficult to predict how this possible purchase will affect Latin America and the US Hispanic markets but one can assert that it will be an uphill for Microsoft/Yahoo! combination to catch up to Google, particularly in Latin America where Google dominates the search market. I think Microsoft may have a better chance to compete against Google in the US as Bing and Yahoo! search engines have a combined market share of roughly 30% compared to 65% by Google.”, Jose Luis Ruiz, Director, LAD Advertising & Online, tells Portada.
Would a potential Yahoo-Microsoft combination, have any direct implications for these organizations organization and sales partnerships?
Very unlikely in the short term. “If the operation is confirmed, I don’t think that there will be many surprises in the short term. In my view both brands would continue operating independently but there would some service changes between both companies to have a stronger combined product supply”, says Juan Jose Nuñez, president of Vertical3Media and former starMedia COO.
In the U.S. Hispanic market MSN sells advertising into Fox Sports en espanol online properties. In Latin America I-Network, which earlier this year was acquired by Batanga, represents MSN properties in the Andean Region (Colombia, Venezuela, Perú, Ecuador, Bolivia),Central América and the Caribbean (Puerto Rico y República Dominicana). We don’t know if a possible combination would alter these sales representation agreements.
