Is AOL dead? Not if Tim Armstrong has anything to say about it.
The tech-cum-advertising-cum-media company reported its second-quarter earnings this morning, beating analysts' estimates and slowing a years-long decline in revenue.
Sure, "We're the least bad we've been in the last seven years" is not exactly an encouraging statement -- it's like something you might have seen in an old Chicago Cubs press release -- but improvement often means opportunity on Wall Street. (In case you didn't get my humor, no, AOL didn't actually say that.)
AOL swung to a profit of $970.8 million, or $10.17 a share, thanks largely to the sale of its patents to Microsoft. A year ago, it posted a loss of $11.8 million, or 11 cents a share.
Analysts expected $519 million in revenue; AOL posted $531 million.
During the quarter, AOL's total revenue declined 2 percent, its lowest rate of decline in seven years, as its global advertising revenue grew 6 percent, boosted by gains in international display advertising and its third-party network.
Most critically, AOL's domestic display advertising revenues held, with neither growth nor decline year over year. Since more than half of AOL's in-house ad dollars come from this group, that means the foundation remains stable.
AOL also improved its Web traffic figures, growing unique visi... [Read more]
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