AOL's Profit Plunges 86% in the First Quarter
Wall Street was "expecting little" this quarter from the newly formed AOL-Huffington Post group. So if you look at the the floundering media company's 86 percent year to year plunge in first-quarter profit in that light, AOL...still doesn't appear in that great of shape.
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This year, AOL reported a first quarter profit of $4.7 million, down from $34.2 million last year. While declining advertising revenues were cited as a culprit, the company's subscription revenue--once its bread-and-butter--slid 24 percent as people slowly ditch the service. But, as All Things D's Peter Kafka notes, it's somewhat shocking that there are 3.6 million people still paying the company $18 a month for email and dial-up service, one service that is widely available for free and another that's become outdated.
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On a brighter note, display advertising--what AOL is now betting on--has risen 4 percent. AOL is crossing its fingers that The Huffington Post, which it has now folded AOL News and the majority of its content operations into, can sustain its growth as the new media juggernaut that CEO Tim Armstrong hoped it would be when he bought the website for $315 million.
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