Seriously? How much money does Yahoo! have? It’s seems everyone’s favourite ailing internet giant has its sights set on premium video site Hulu, reports AllThingsD. As it stands, details are still a little sketchy but the company has joined the bid for the video site to the tune of US$600-800-million.
No ad to show here.
This acquisition makes sense for Yahoo! as Hulu currently boasts a subscriber base of four million who pay US$7.99 per month for its video content. The company also reported US$695-million in revenue in 2012, making it a more attractive and profitable buy for Yahoo compared to Tumblr.
Founded in 2007, Hulu is a joint venture between NBC Universal Television Group, Fox Broadcasting Company (News Corp) and Disney-ABC Television Group. To date the company has received funding from Providence Equity Partners, which made a US$100-million equity investment and received a 10% stake, which was later sold in 2012.
Video is an area of interest for Yahoo!. The company has been building up its video efforts over the last few years with content deals with ABC News, CNBC Conde Nast, NBC Sports and Wenner Media, in addition to original web shows. However the Silicon Valley veteran has not been able to compete with video powerhouse YouTube, which it lost out to Google several years ago.
The company’s focus on rebranding and resurgence has seen it purchase a number of tech startups in the last 18 months following the sale of a sizeable stake in Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba. According to reports, the company is also independently working on two other significant purchases of lesser numbers (US$150-million to US$200-million) for a mobile and a communications company.
The Hulu purchase is interestingly reportedly not being driven by CEO Marissa Mayer, but rather by Los Angeles-based Ian Weingarten, VP of corporate development. If successful, this acquisition could be one of the most important for the Yahoo!’s return to the power table.
Though Hulu’s numbers are not as impressive as competitor Netflix, it has shown remarkable growth in the last 12 months and exceeded profit exceptions in its last earnings.
