Yahoo is reportedly planning an entry to the fast growing – but fiercely competitive – messaging app market, with two products in the pipeline.
According to Business Insider, the company is working on a product that will replace its desktop Yahoo Groups service. This will feature elements from a group messaging app called BeamIt, which it acquired in November 2014 as part of its Cooliris buy.
Another will focus on one-to-one messaging.
The Information previously reported that Yahoo is working on new products with a belief that “messaging apps will meld both live and recorded messages and videos rather than just focus on one type of communication”.
Yahoo has a lot in its favour – not least that in Q1 it had more than 600 million monthly active users on mobile. And Marissa Mayer, its CEO, recently described Yahoo Mail as a “powerhouse of user retention”.
But it is not immediately clear how the company will differentiate itself in a marketplace that is both saturated and fragmented.
While Facebook has a strong position through both Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, there are a number of alternatives including Viber, Line, Telegram, Skype, among others.
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