Video sharing website YouTube celebrated its tenth anniversary on the 14th of February this year. The site has grown over the last decade to become the dominant video sharing website with over a billion users every single month. It has left its competitors lagging far behind, but there are several plans in place to change this and improve competition.
Dailymotion is only marginally younger than YouTube. It was founded on 15th March 2005, just four weeks after what would come to be the world leader in the market. Over the last ten years it has grown substantially, although not to the level that YouTube has. With 300 million users it is a large way behind the market leader but there are good signs that it could be a future competitor. A strategy of introducing localised versions in different languages and different services is positive and shows optimism for the future.
The potential for Dailymotion is there to be seen and has even encouraged French mass media specialists Vivendi to put in an offer to buy the company. Telecommunications giant Orange, the current owner of the site, has been searching for a partner to help them with the international expansion of the website for several years. Hong Kong based specialists PCCW originally put in an offer for partnership but it was rejected after preference for a European solution came to light.
Vivendi is a French specialist in their sector with a great deal of experience across different forms of media. Their offer of 250 million Euros (£184 million) is a good one and could tempt Orange into a sale, particularly since they bought the remaining 49% of the company they didn’t own at a loss in 2013. At that time the valuation was estimated to be somewhere around 140 million Euros.
The offer is expected to be debated over the coming weeks and could see a partnership between Orange and Vivendi or a full sale of Dailymotion. Either way, the future looks bright for the site and YouTube could find themselves with a serious competitor on their hands in the coming years.