Yahoo's user base will more than triple over the next three years, company chief executive Tim Koogle predicted at this week's IDC European Forum.

Koogle said he expects the number of Yahoo users to grow from around 140 million at the end of 1998 to 280 million over the next two years and more than 420 million over the next three.

"Last year around $1.7 billion was spent with us on advertising. This is projected to grow to $11 billion in two years and to between $20 billion and $30 billion over the next three years," he said.

Although there had been widespread reports over the last few months about Europe lagging behind the US in technology adoption, Yahoo's European user case is actually growing much faster than the US, Koogle noted.

Koogle said Yahoo has around 80 million registered users world wide and gets 370 million page views per day.

"Our closest competitors are Excite and Lycos with around 170 million page views per day," he said.

When asked why his company is so successful, Koogle answered candidly: "We picked the right strategy. We had no idea it was the right one when we picked it, but we picked the right one."

See also:

Lycos acquires Gamesville.com for $207m

Lycos attempted to boost its strategy of providing users with a diversified selection of entertainment and information on its portal site by announcing plans to acquire Gamesville.com on Tuesday.  24 Nov 1999

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!