Yahoo Japan
More info
- Released
- 1996
- Owner
- LY Corporation (SoftBank group)
- Type
- Web portal
The Japanese Yahoo portal, launched by SoftBank, which outlived and long outshone its American parent.
Founded in January 1996 as a joint venture between SoftBank and Yahoo, with SoftBank holding the majority. While the US portal lost to Google, Yahoo Japan stayed the country's biggest website for years. Its auction site, Yahoo! Auctions, was so dominant that eBay quit the Japanese market as early as 2002.
The company kept polishing the brand while the American original decayed. In 2019 it was folded under a holding company, Z Holdings, which merged with Line in 2021 and became LY Corporation in 2023. The stake Yahoo once held reached the market by way of Altaba.