If their latest earnings are any indication, Apple and Yahoo will continue to move in opposite directions as far as their influence in the technology sector, analysts said.
Apple’s shares soared to a new high Wednesday after the company reported its second-quarter profit jumped 90 percent, while Yahoo’s shares fell after it reported a disappointing outlook.
Because Apple has only a 3 percent market share on a global basis, the computer and phone products maker has plenty of room to grow, Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Hudson Square Research told CNBC Wednesday.
“We don’t even really have, in my opinion, consumer spending back yet so this is just a taste of what they might be doing later in the year,” he said.
That's when sales of Apple's new iPad will be more fully incorporated into the results.
Farther into the future, Apple still has plenty of room to go, according to Ernst. He conducts a survey of students at major national universities each fall, polling them about their use of Apple products.
“In our college surveys, they have 25 to 30 percent market share, and those kids are tomorrow’s corporate leaders,” he said.
According to Ernst, the students’ usage of Apple products has “almost doubled” in the five years since the firm began conducting the survey.
Conversely, Yahoo’s brand continues to suffer, said Clayton Moran, an analyst at the Benchmark Company.
“Yahoo is a portal, and it’s the portals that are losing share, and (it’s) the specialized sites like Google, YouTube and Facebook that are gaining share,” Moran said.
Yahoo’s market share as a search site “will continue to decline,” according to Moran, and he did not see what steps the company could take to prevent it.