April 18, 2003

The local unit of Internet portal giant Yahoo has continued to lose strength in the search engine market, according to a survey. The survey, conducted by a popular online research service Ranky.com, found that an Internet portal NHN emerged as the most popular Web search tool with an average 3.72 million users a day, eclipsing Yahoo’s 3 million users.

``In just five years, NHN has become synonymous with online searches,’’ the survey said. Searching for information online is one of the most common uses of the Internet, and search engines are popular with online advertisers.

Since its debut in the domestic market, which has one of world’s most sophisticated Internet-user bases and a powerful broadband Internet structure, Yahoo had dominated the online search market.

Recently, however, Yahoo’s status as the leader in online search engines has been challenged because it has not designed business models that attract domestic Internet users. Unlike NHN, which has millions of online gaming subscribers, Yahoo’s Korean unit does receive royalties associated with gaming, the survey said.

Yahoo’s Korean unit did not comment when approached for comment on the survey. Meanwhile, the survey said Daum Communications ranked third with an average 1.79 million users a day and Empas.com, a privately owned Internet portal, came to fourth with 1.61 million users.

Recently, Internet portals have diversified their revenue streams using search engines driven by advertising.

Source: The Korea Times

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