Yahoo! switches priorities to lift revenue
Monday, July 16, 2001
CAROLYN ONG
More changes are afoot at struggling portal network Yahoo!, which announced on Wednesday a US$48.5 million loss.
The company has appointed former chairman and chief executive of Asia.com Allan Kwan as the head of Yahoo! North Asia, a position left vacant since March, when former head Savio Chow abruptly resigned.
Mr Chow was head of Yahoo! in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Singapore and India. However, Yahoo! in Asia underwent a quiet restructuring in the second quarter, putting Singapore, India, Australia and Southeast Asia in the charge of a new head, Tony Faure, regional vice-president of Yahoo! South Asia.
Mr Kwan, as new regional vice-president and managing director of Yahoo! North Asia oversees three places - Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.
Yahoo!, which saw several management changes after chief executive Terry Semel took the reins in April, added three new heads to its European and South Korean operations, and sales operations on the east coast of the United States.
S.I. Lee takes on the role of chief executive of Yahoo! Korea, Mark Opzoomer, formerly with wireless services firm Xtempus, will become regional vice-president and managing director of Yahoo! Europe. John Glascott, formerly of iVillage, is the new regional vice-president of the eastern region, responsible for US east coast sales.
There is a clear trend in Yahoo!'s new appointments - the three new heads of North Asia, Europe and South Korea previously held jobs in wireless technology. Before Asia.com, Mr Kwan was with Motorola and Nortel Telecom, heading up wireless initiatives. At Asia.com, a network of Asian portals, Mr Kwan tried to use his experience in the wireless business to give Asia.com an early lead in wireless Internet. He also pursued an aggressive mergers-and-acquisitions strategy there, buying wireless developer Huelink Corp in June last year.
Mr Kwan saw enormous opportunities in electronic commerce and mobile commerce for Yahoo! North Asia.
On Wednesday, Yahoo! chief Mr Semel told analysts and reporters the company would abandon some of Yahoo!'s long-held practices and find ways to boost sales while contending with a sharp downturn in advertising spending.
Mr Semel told The New York Times the company's priorities would be in music, finance, sports and other areas of entertainment to boost content portfolio and charge users for access. It was also looking to make acquisitions of companies in these areas, as it prepared to introduce a range of extra-cost services.
Mr Kwan claimed Asia had been the least affected in the global slowdown in advertising and would stick to Yahoo!'s business model of getting advertising dollars for revenue.
"We believe the advertising market is going to continue to evolve and will remain a core part of our business," Mr Kwan said.
"We hold strong belief that when economic conditions strengthen, online advertising as a percentage of overall spending will increase at the expense of other media and we expect to be a beneficiary."
Mr Kwan said China was clearly the most important market in Asia over the long term.
Yahoo! does not have a strong presence in China, where the market is dominated by three portals - Sohu.com, Sina.com and Netease.com. All three portals are struggling to make money in a market that has been soft in Internet ad spending.
According to a report by NetValue, Yahoo! is the most visited Web-site in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, with a top reach of 89.2 per cent of all Internet users in Taiwan.
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