14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo has purchased Flurry, a mobile analytics firm that cost the Internet giant more than $200 million (€148 million).
The company hasn’t exactly made it a secret that it wants to take things further in the mobile world, where it wants to become a significant player. In fact, during the recent earnings report, Yahoo has reported some 450 million monthly active users, while the search and display mobile ad revenues grew by 100 percent in the past year.
Yahoo has confirmed the rumors going on around the Internet about its plans to become an even bigger player in the mobile world.
“Yahoo is on a mission to re-imagine users’ daily habits, and mobile is at the center of everything we do. Our agreement to acquire Flurry is a meaningful step for the company and reinforces Yahoo’s commitment to building and supporting useful, inspiring and beautiful mobile applications and monetization solutions,” Yahoo said in its announcement.
“By joining Yahoo, Flurry will have resources to speed up the delivery of platforms that help developers build better apps, reach the right users, and explore new revenue opportunities. Together, the companies can make mobile experiences better through products that are more personalized and more inspiring.”
Flurry, a mobile app analytics and advertising company, seems to be the perfect solution for Yahoo’s plans.
“As part of Yahoo, Flurry will continue to serve the application developer community in the way we always have, only better. With Yahoo, we will have access to more resources to speed up the delivery of great products that can help app developers build better apps, reach the right users, and explore new revenue opportunities. Over the last six years we have accomplished a lot on our own, but with Yahoo we are in an even better position to achieve our joint goals,” said Simon Khalaf, president and CEO, Flurry.
The rumors started out on the Secret app where several posts discussed about how Flurry was getting acquired by Yahoo, although it seems that part of them at least have been wiped out.
Flurry has been on the market for a while, looking for between three to four times more than Yahoo is rumored to have paid for the company. It does seem, however, that another Secret poster has a point when it writes that the price will be low if the Flurry is valued as an ad tech company, but the price will go up if it is valued on the analytics SDK footprint. Marissa Mayer, as the poster puts it, likes to overpay for things, something that’s been obvious over the past few years.
So, while the acquisition price tag is rumored to be somewhere between $200 and $300 million (€148 and €222.4 million), rumor had it in recent months that Flurry was looking for someone willing to pay about $700 million (€519 million) or more, but it remains to be seen whether the company managed to obtain the desired price.
Flurry has been quite a useful tool to have around and has had a massive impact on the mobile world. The company claims that since the launch of the smartphone, Flurry has helped grow the app economy exponentially, creating an entire industry of over $100 billion (€74 billion).