The Daily Deal Affect: Can Groupon Sustain the Pressure Bubble?
Daily deal behemoth Groupon may be valued between $15BN and $25 in an initial public offering, but the downside of this inflated figure is felt across the entire tech scene, as more bubble talk is spurred, and hyperlocal marketing trends continue to build out Groupon’s own ecosystem, which is flush with big data and readily encouraging a complex market exchange that’s ripe for mobile consumerism. This valuation comes after Groupon declined Google’s $6 billion bid last year, and about 2 months ago Groupon founder and Chief Executive Andrew Mason said his company is considering a public offering, but hadn’t decided yet.
Principal eMarketer analyst Jeffrey Grau believes Groupon may not be able to sustain its ginormous valuation – the very same thing others have said about Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the ridiculously valuated social media bunch. “I see a number of challenges ahead. LivingSocial is really making a push to really compete with Groupon,” Grau said. “In the short term the outlook is very bright. However, they are going to face a lot more competition.”
One notable aspect of a $25 billion valuation would be that, if realized, this would make Groupon the highest-valued venture-backed company on record at the time of its IPO. To put it all in perspective, Google is the one currently holding the seat at $24.6 billion.
A $25 billion valuation of the daily deals site would be a very noticeable sign of another potentially imminent tech bubble, but when you go over to Facebook’s side, everything becomes a bit more complicated. According to WSJ Facebook’s valuation could reach – and surpass – the almost unbelievable $75 billion (or even $100 billion) mark by 2012, when its IPO expected. Twitter is also getting some attention, and analyst Tom Foremski gave the SiliconANGLE on the possible social media bubble.
Skidding away from the social chart a bit, Skype is also going to have its IPO soon, and it’s integrating as deeply into social media as it can, prior to filing for a public offering. The VoIP leader is delving into advertising in an effort to monetize over 160 million non-paying users, and it already got a few clients – Visa, Universal Pictures and guess what? Groupon too.
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