Yahoo acquires short movie app maker Qwiki

Yahoo has made another acquisition aimed at bolstering its position in the mobile space as part of efforts to regain lost market share.

The latest acquisition is of start-up Qwiki, which developed an iPhone app that allows users to turn photos, music and videos into short movies automatically.

The firm has made several acquisitions since CEO Marissa Mayer took up the challenge of turning Yahoo around and winning back advertisers and users lost to rivals Google and Facebook.

Since Mayer’s arrival in July 2012, Yahoo has acquired several start-ups, including Alike, Stamped, Snip.it and Summly, an application created by a UK teenager Nick D'Aloisio from Wimbledon.

The most recent acquisitions have been blogging service Tumblr and Bignoggins Productions, a maker of sports apps for iPhones.

Tumblr came at a cost of $1.1bn. The value of the deals for Summly and Qwiki were not disclosed publicly, but have been pegged unofficially at $27m and $40m-50m, respectively.

On taking over the role of CEO, Mayer said her top priority was to create a coherent mobile strategy to reverse years of declining key display advertising revenue.

Other recent initiatives have included an update of Yahoo’s homepage and a revamp of its Flickr photo sharing platform, acquired in 2005.