A new report today suggests that Yahoo may be looking to offload its core internet firm, with many potential buyers looking to bid on the assets should the company decide to put them up for sale. Rumored to be among them is the U.S. largest cell phone carrier, Verizon Wireless, which reportedly entered into an agreement earlier this year with AOL to purchase the company for $4.4 billion. Although many possible buyers are likely to be waiting on Yahoo’s decision to sell, Verizon is certain to have a vested interest in grabbing up what they let go of as it would allow them to put even more focus on advertising efforts. Also rumored to be interested in the purchase are AT&T and Sprint’s parent company SoftBank
Verizon has already started the transition to combine their own two advertising platforms with the single platform used by AOL following the company acquisition from earlier this year, and getting access to Yahoo’s Internet business assets would open them up to a wealth of new data and information on users, which includes the email addresses contained in Yahoo Mail as well as Yahoo’s registration data. This is all of course hinged on whether or not Yahoo decides to sell off the core internet business at all, which at this point is still unconfirmed by Yahoo themselves.
As part of the core business, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News make up the third largest website in terms of monthly visitors collectively, which is sure to seem like a rather enticing figure for Verizon. With Verizon trying to strengthen its advertisement reach, acquiring Yahoo’s core internet business could help them better compete with ad technology heavyweights Facebook and Google, which are currently the only two other sites with more traffic than Yahoo. Verizon could also utilize Yahoo’s core internet sites to advertise for its recently launched video platform Go90, which could in turn help them to more heavily push the need to subscribers for higher data plans. Should an acquisition of Yahoo’s internet business by Verizon Wireless commence, it’s rumored that AOL’s former Chief executive Tim Armstrong, who now heads the advertising operations at Verizon, could end up leading the combined pack of Verizon, AOL, and Yahoo advertising efforts.