With investors preoccupied by the ongoing search-engine wars, Yahoo!
Despite the G in South Korea's Gmarket, the company has nothing to do with Google
It's easy to see why Yahoo!'s interested. E-commerce giant eBay
A quick peek at Gmarket's preliminary registration statement reveals that this e-commerce IPO won't remind you of the bubble days -- it's already profitable. In 2005, Gmarket reported net income of $5.24 million and sales of $72.4 million. (That could change, though; 2005 was the first profitable year in Gmarket's history.) In April, Gmarket had 15.3 million average monthly unique visitors, and more than 8.6 million registered users.
Targeting a player in a major market like South Korea is a logical move for Yahoo! eBay got in there years ago, which makes one wonder why Yahoo! waited so long, but better late than never. Although the company's share price has tumbled since the beginning of this year, investors may want to think twice before underestimating Yahoo!.
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Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.