AOL is the center of attention as a group of communications giants jostle for the honor of buying a stake in the former ailing service. IP Media Monitor today takes a look at the question: what’s so great about AOL? It certainly isn’t the company’s overall recent financial and operating performance.
Based on the Q3 05 financial and operating data released last week by Time Warner, AOL looks like, well, a mediocre property at best and a totally tanking enterprise at worst. Over the past two years, all but one key metric for AOL has been on the downswing. From the end of Q3 03 to the end of Q3 05, AOL’s subscriber count has dropped by 18% or 4.6 million, a decline in the predominately dial-up base of the dot.com era superstar that seems unlikely to end - ever.
At the same time, AOL’s total revenues have dropped 3% from $2.115 billion to $2.041 billion. But, the bright spot is, of course, AOL’s ad revenues, which got a big boost with the company’s $435 million acquisition of online marketing company Advertising.com. Ad revenues for AOL have grown by 84%, from $178 million in Q3 03 to $328 million in Q3 05. By year-end, AOL’s ad revenues will top $1 billion, placing it in the elite company of Google, Yahoo and other Internet players that generate more than $1 billion in annual ad revenue.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:25 AM|Comments(0)
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