Through Years of Tumult,
AOL Sticks Around
By Keith Collins and David Ingold
| May 12, 2015
Verizon's planned purchase of AOL comes after years of ups and downs for the former dial-up giant. AOL went from pulling off the largest corporate acquisition in history to being spun off nearly a decade later at a fraction of its prior value. It launched a local news service that quickly failed, it bought the Internet's most popular blog, and through it all, it continued to bring in significant revenue.
Slowly and Steadily Staying Afloat
Verizon plans to purchase AOL for nearly $2 billion more than it was worth when Time Warner spun off the company in 2009.
2015AOL buys Adap.tvfor $418m 2011AOL buys HuffingtonPost for $315m 2010AOL sells ICQ Instant Messenger for $187m 2012 AOL sells largepatent portfolio to Microsoft for $1b AOL's Internet subscription service, which generated the cash to buy Time Warner, is packaged into the $2.5 billion AOL spinoff in 2009 2015 Verizon agreesto buy AOL for $4.4b 2009Time Warner spins offAOL at $2.5b 2000AOL buys Time Warner for $186.2b in the largest corporateacquisition of all time
Source: Bloomberg data
 
2.2 Million Americans Still Subscribe to AOL
At the end of Q1 2015, AOL reported 2,156,000 domestic subscribers who pay an average of $20.83 per month. That’s down 92 percent from AOL’s peak, but subscriptions are still the company’s second largest source of revenue after advertising.
Domestic AOL subscribers, by quarter 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 million 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 Time Warner spinsoff AOL for $2.5 billion Q1 2015: 2,156,000subscribers Q3 2002: 26.7 million subscribers
Source: AOL financial statements
 
AOL Still Has Billions in Revenue
The AOL brand doesn’t carry the same heft it enjoyed in the early 2000s. But the company generated $2.5 billion in sales revenue in FY 2014, more than popular Internet and media companies like LinkedIn, Twitter, or the New York Times Co.
Facebook Yahoo! AOL LinkedIn New York Times Co. Twitter Expedia Gannett Co. Zynga TripAdvisor 0 3000 Company FY 2014 annual sales revenue $12.5 billion $4.6b $5.8b $6.0b $2.5b $1.6b $1.4b $690 million $1.2b $2.2b Subscriptionsaccounted for $606.5 million
Source: Bloomberg data