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Ebay consumes Korean competitor – helps Yahoo

By Andy Atkins-Kruger on April 16, 2009

ORF.at reports that Ebay has acquired 67% of South Korean competitor Gmarket for $1.2 billion and becomes the market leader in South Korea. Ebay has already bought 67% of shares listed on the New York NASDAQ.

Large beneficiaries of the move are both Yahoo and Interpark which were major shareholders in Gmarket owning a combined 39%. South Korea is the world’s 6th largest online market and Gmarket has 10 million registered users. The deal has been approved by competition authorities with certain conditions.

South Korea is also a market where Google struggles and previously Google and Ebay were small in market share terms. Ebay has a property called Internet Auction there which focuses on electrical items and sports gear. Yahoo is more successful – indirectly – thanks to its relationship with number one search engine Naver.

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Andy Atkins-Kruger

CEO at Webcertain
Andy is the CEO of Webcertain. He is a trained linguist with 20 years of experience in international marketing, having helped major brand leaders with their advertising and public relations projects on five continents. Webcertain has been operating multilingual search marketing campaigns for over 15 years and is one of few agencies which only deal with international campaigns; the company doesn't deal in single market projects. Andy speaks regularly at conferences around the world.

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