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Yahoo Europe on Probation

Yahoo has issued an ultimatum to its Yahoo Europe employees: improve performance or we will sell the company or close down these doors entirely. Toby Coppel, the new head Yahoo's European business, says its challenges in Europe are more substantial than in the U.S. "In rushing out to market, we built a lot of applications that didn't speak to each other," he said. We were managing a larger number of legacy products with fewer people than in the States."

For starters, the Web giant has a paltry 3.2 percent share of the European search market, according to comScore. Its content is viewed by 42 percent of European users, compared to 60.5 percent of users across the globe and 76.2 percent in the U.S.

One of Yahoo's problems is its unwillingness to move into local markets across Europe. Whereas Google and MySpace continue to expand their country-specific offerings, Yahoo Europe has halted its expansion into local markets.

Read the whole story at Financial Times »

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