Aol Abroad: Miles To Go

January 15, 2001 at 5:00 AM UTC

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Boris Becker may be fearsome on the tennis court, but gosh, he sure looks confused by this Internet thing. Then the German sports idol gets America Online. A few clicks, and the familiar blue triangle pops onto his PC screen. "I'm in!" cries Becker in a German TV spot promoting the portal, which in Germany runs customized channels on topics like finance, travel, and sports, just as it does in the U.S.

The strategy of offering special content and easy access has boosted AOL subscriptions 60% in the past year, to 3.9 million, in Europe. Still, AOL subscriber numbers lag behind the big telecom companies. In Germany, for example, anyone who upgrades to Deutsche Telekom's high-speed digital phone service automatically gets a subscription to T-Online, the company's Internet access provider. Elsewhere in Japan and Latin America, AOL is still small potatoes. Yet AOL Time Warner boss Robert W. Pittman wants AOL to succeed overseas. When AOL memberships in the U.S. peak, growth has to come from somewhere.