Microsoft-Yahoo deal: Playing the numbers game

Examined using several different metrics, Microsoft's bid for Yahoo could create one of the world's largest Web companies.

The real target of the proposed US$44.6bn acquisition, of course, is Google, which enjoys a healthy lead in the search market but which would trail the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo in several important categories. Here's a look at the tale of the tape.

The numbers behind the Microsoft-Yahoo deal

• US$59.09 billion: The combined fiscal 2007 revenue of Microsoft and Yahoo. Most of that revenue comes from Microsoft's twin strongholds of its Windows operating system and its Office software suite. MSN, Microsoft's online effort perhaps most akin to those of Yahoo and Google, earned US$2.4 billion in revenue for Microsoft's fiscal 2007, compared with Yahoo's US$7 billion in revenue. Google's 2007 fiscal revenue was $16.59 billion.

• US1.2 billion: The combined number of unique monthly visitors to Microsoft and Yahoo's Web sites worldwide, according to December statistics from ComScore. Google is the current leader in terms of monthly unique visitors, while Microsoft and Yahoo are second and third, respectively. The combination of Microsoft and Yahoo's wide variety of sites would theoretically make it the first billion-user Web property, though a lot of people who currently visit both sites would get lumped into the overall figure. Google's unique visitors in December 2007 totalled 588 million.

• 31.5 percent: The combined US search market-share percentage for Microsoft and Yahoo. With 56.3 percent of the search market, according to December 2007 figures from Nielsen, Google would still have a very healthy lead in search queries, which comprise the launching pad for everything else that these Web properties are trying to accomplish.

• 4.2 million: The combined size of the unique Australian search audience per 30 days for Yahoo and ninemsn (Microsoft) compared to Google at 9 million.

• 83.1 million: The combined US email market share for Microsoft and Yahoo as of September 2007, according to Nielsen. They would have a huge advantage over Google here, as both companies have been providing free Web e-mail for years, before Google got into the game with Gmail (which has about 13.6 million users). Yahoo is currently far and away the e-mail leader, with 55.5 million unique users, and AOL is also still very much in this game, with almost 30 million unique users.

• Five million: The combined number of unique Australian Webmail users over a 30 day period for Hotmail (Microsoft) and Yahoomail. The number of unique Googlemail users over the same period is 0.8 million.

• 47 million: The combined number of unique users of US instant-messaging services for Microsoft and Yahoo, according to September 2007 figures from Nielsen. Again, there is no contest here: AOL is the market leader, with AOL Instant Messenger and 39.8 million unique users, but a Microsoft-Yahoo blend would surpass this figure with room to spare. With just two million users, Google Talk is barely on the instant-messaging map, trailing the big three, as well as meebo and Skype.

• 15.6 percent: The combined percentage of US Internet visits for Microsoft and Yahoo, as of 26 January, according to Hitwise. Page views might be on the out as the end-all, be-all metric of web properties, but they still count for something. A combined Microsoft-Yahoo company would generate more than double the page views of Google's current operations, which grab 7.7 percent of US web page visits.

• 13.2 million: The combined audience of unique Australians over 30 days to (ninemsn) Microsoft and Yahoo Internet, versus 9.4 million for Google.