Yahoo’s fall: 7 other firms that lost market dominance
Yahoo’s fall from its perch at the top of the tech world places the Internet giant in the dubious category of major businesses that lost their once-tight grip on the marketplace.
To be sure, Yahoo’s brand isn’t going anywhere. The company still draws about 1 billion people per month to its sites and services. But the $4.8 billion valuation is a pittance compared with Facebook’s $348 billion and Google’s $509 billion, illustrating the company’s stunning slide.
Aside from retail bankruptcies, big dominant brands don’t generally collapse quickly. But without a dramatic overhaul, Yahoo’s slide could look like any number of other major corporate brands that faded away.
Here are seven examples Yahoo should study carefully. KODAK Eastman Kodak crashed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012. Felled by the rise of digital cameras, Kodak failed to adapt quickly enough as its core film photography business cratered.
Founded in the 19th century by George Eastman, Kodak helped make photography accessible to average people. By the 1980s, the company had some 130,000 employees worldwide. But when it emerged from its bankruptcy restructuring in 2013, the Rochester, N.Y.-based company had only 4,700 employees remaining. WOOLWORTH The five-and-dime store chain rose to prominence with a business model predicated on a highly varied assortment of products, dominating the discount sector in the early 20th century.
But Woolworth fell into disrepair after the rise of the suburban mall, big-box stores such as Walmart and Target, and drugstore chains. The company closed its final 400 U.S. stores in 1997. BLOCKBUSTER The movie-rental chain was perhaps doomed to fail after the rise of video-streaming options through the Internet and on-demand TV services. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010, selling stores and assets to satellite TV provider Dish Network. But its DVD-by-mail business sputtered and its remaining stores were closed after Dish announced in 2013 that it would focus on its Blockbuster streaming service. MYSPACE Founded in 2003, Myspace once had as many as 75 million active users on the social network. But then Facebook exploded onto the scene, and it appealed to a broader audience, passing Myspace in total users by 2008. Myspace failed to adapt as the socialmedia arena exploded. The site was sold in February to Time Inc. PAN AM Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the largest international airline in the U.S. “for most of its lifetime,” according to the Delta Flight Museum.
After the deregulation of the U.S. airline industry and the company’s attempt to create a domestic flight network in the 1980s, Pan Am collapsed into bankruptcy in 1991. Its international routes were picked up by Delta Air Lines. BLACKBERRY Canadian firm Research In Motion once held a stranglehold on the smartphone market, but BlackBerry endured a precipitous fall from grace.
The rise of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system crushed BlackBerry’s hold on the market.
Before those competitors came along, BlackBerry represented more than half of smartphone sales. But by 2012, that figure had fallen below 5%, according to IDC. Today, it’s about 0.3%.
BlackBerry’s failure to adapt to touch-screen design and its failure to quickly embrace the app revolution are among the many reasons cited for its swift demise.