GaplekNews--AOL said Wednesday that it had increased its global advertising revenue for the second consecutive quarter, indicating some improvement at the beleaguered digital media company.
The company’s overall revenue, however, remained down year over year, reflecting the continued struggle to remake itself. In the third quarter, AOL reported total revenue of $532 million, ahead of most analysts’ estimates, but down 6 percent from the same quarter in 2010.
Tim Armstrong, the chief executive of AOL, said that the quarterly decline was “the lowest rate of decline in five years.”
AOL reported a loss of $2.6 million, or 2 cents a share. In the same quarter last year, it reported a profit of $171.6 million, or $1.61 a share. Analysts had expected a bigger loss; AOL stock closed up more than 12 percent on Wednesday, to $15.02.
The shrinking unit of AOL that sells monthly Internet service weighed down the company’s overall earnings, as it has for years. The subscription service reported revenue of $192 million, down 22 percent from the same quarter last year. At the same time, advertising revenue totaled $318 million, up 8 percent.
The ad revenues were lifted by the company’s acquisition of The Huffington Post, announced last February. On a conference call with analysts, Mr. Armstrong acknowledged that Web traffic to the network of AOL and Huffington Post sites was virtually flat, but said he was hopeful that the sites would show more meaningful growth in the next year.
Under Mr. Armstrong, AOL has sought to cut costs, consolidate some of its online brands and improve its advertising technology. It also has contemplated some sort of tie-up with Yahoo, though on Wednesday, Mr. Armstrong tried to tamp down speculation about a future deal.
Meanwhile, he highlighted the opportunity to further increase ad revenues for the company’s wide array of Web sites. “Even if the economy gets weaker, I still think you’re going to see a macro trend where advertisers are going to shift dollars from traditional media to consumer digital media, because that kind of migration has happened so quickly,” he told the analysts. nytimes
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