Verizon Communications said it had agreed to sell Yahoo and AOL to Apollo Global Management in a $ 5 billion deal .
According to the New York Times , the deal covers all of Verizon's advertising business, suggesting that the company wants to give up on the media. Verizon still holds a 10% stake in Yahoo and AOL. In 2020, Verizon also sells the HuffPost site to BuzzFeed.
Yahoo and AOL are among the names of the Internet boom in the 1990s. Yahoo used to be the "home page" of the Internet, with lots of content and sub-sites offering a variety of services. Meanwhile, AOL also acts as the Internet gateway for many Americans. At its peak, AOL was valued at more than $ 200 billion , while Yahoo was at $ 125 billion .
However, these companies were overtaken by younger startups like Google and Facebook in the 2000s. Although there are still high-traffic websites like Yahoo Sports or TechCrunch, the two companies are no longer holding. position as before.
Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 for $ 4.4 billion , targeting mobile and digital content users. In 2017, they spent $ 4.48 billion to buy Yahoo, then merged with AOL in a division called Oath.
However, Oath still can't compete with giants like Google and Facebook. In 2018, Verizon reduced the pricing of the division itself to $ 4.6 billion . With a contract value of $ 5 billion , Verizon only makes about half of the money it spent on Yahoo and AOL.
According to the New York Times , Oath's business results are still positive. The division generated $ 1.9 billion in revenue in the first quarter, up 10% year-on-year.
After selling Yahoo and AOL, Verizon will focus on telecommunications, the company's traditional sector. In March, Verizon spent $ 53 billion to auction the 5G band.
In Vietnam, Yahoo used to "dominate" the desktop messaging application market with Yahoo! Messenger. Blogging platform Yahoo! 360 ° was also very popular in the 2000s, before being replaced by social networks. Yahoo! 360 ° was replaced by Yahoo Blog in 2012, then killed in 2013. Yahoo! Messenger was also closed in 2018.