What's on the horizon for the Internet giants? Mark Mahaney, Citigroup's director of Internet equity research, tells Vator.tv's Bambi Francisco what to expect from Google, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon.com for third-quarter earnings and beyond.
Google has two strategic initiatives -- YouTube and mobile Internet advertising -- that could help push its stock to new highs, although that's not likely in the wake of its earnings report this week given its recent run-up, Mahaney says.
He sees YouTube contributing between $100 million and $200 million in sales next year, just a fraction of Google's expected annual total of $16 billion.
Yahoo faces "structural challenges" as it tries to make inroads against Google in search while also defending its online display ad business, according to Mahaney. Likewise, both Amazon's recent foray into providing corporate storage and eBay's Skype Internet telephony push are two businesses that could quickly commoditize, he said.
And echoing what we said in a post last week, Mahaney surmised that eBay's management were the last people to admit that Skype has underperformed expectations.
Good interview. I agree with Mark on the potential for Youtube.