Yahoo Grows Up, Reaches the Second Position

The Yahoo photo sharing service Flickr grew up a lot and is now the second most popular product in its category with approximately 38 percent market share in the latest four weeks. According to a recent statistic published by Hitwise, Photobucket is the leader in the United States with 43.5 percent market share. The interesting fact is that Flickr was only the third service as popularity in March 2007 when it recorded only a share of 4.57 percent. However, the difference is huge because the Flickr is now receiving users from the closure of Yahoo Photos so we should wait a while to see what happens.

"It is worth noting that Flickr has a truly global footprint, and has greater share of the photography category in other markets. Spend a few minutes on Flickrvision and you will get a sense for Flickr's global reach. Hitwise global data shows that Flickr is the #2 photography site (with Photobucket at #1) in both the UK and Australia, with about 10% market share in both countries. Expect it to keep growing both here and abroad," LeeAnn Prescott from HitWise wrote today.

As you probably heard, Yahoo announced some time ago the closure of Yahoo Photos, an online photo sharing service that offered almost the same features as Flickr. Because they were almost the same product, the Sunnyvale company decided to close the first one in order to focus on the evolution of Flickr.

To assure a safe account migration, Yahoo developed several features that enables Yahoo Photos users to move all their images and settings to Flickr in a matter of minutes. However, the consumers were also able to choose another photo sharing service, a move that surely increased the number of Photobucket fans, the solution that is regarded as the number 1 rival in the United States.