Verizon's Oath division failing

[maflynn]

In a surprise to no one, it seems that Oath is a failure. Let's just take Verizon's logic, lets buy a failing company (that once was a media darling), and make money from it, even though its prior owners/leaders failed. They did this not once, but twice, buying AOL and then Yahoo.

Verizon cuts 10,000 jobs and admits its Yahoo/AOL division is a failure

Yahoo was in a death spiral, I'm not sure why a communications company though a failed search engine associated portfolio would be a good fit. AOL isn't that much different a once web giant that ruled the internet, they are now an also ran cast aside

As a result, Verizon said it "expects to record a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of approximately $4.6 billion ($4.5 billion after-tax) in the fourth quarter of 2018." Verizon previously estimated Oath's goodwill balance at $4.8 billion, so the $4.6 billion charge will wipe out nearly all of Oath's goodwill value.

 

[C DM]

Pretty sure it was all mainly for the eyeballs (basically getting the existing consumers to get what they can out of them while they can).

 

[maflynn]

Pretty sure it was all mainly for the eyeballs (basically getting the existing consumers to get what they can out of them while they can).

Given that they just wrote off 4.6 billion dollars, I think they had more plans for it, but failed to accurately gauge their business and trends. Yahoo was toxic, thanks to the data breaches, but they still went through with the purchase.

 

[willmtaylor]

Advertising revenue and infrastructure from everything I read.

 

[zakarhino]

I still can't wrap my head around why they purchased those companies in the first place.

 

[willmtaylor]

I still can't wrap my head around why they purchased those companies in the first place.

From Fortune:

Verizon is trying to pivot its business from analog to digital,” analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson told the Wall Street Journal. “Verizon believes that a combined AOL/Yahoo would provide the digital advertising platform they need to execute their video reinvention strategy.”

Although it has failed to make much headway as a traditional digital-content company, AOL has managed to put together what analysts say is a fairly impressive combination of programmatic ad-buying and targeting tools—especially for video. That’s primarily what Verizon was interested in when it acquired the company.
​

From Washington Post:

So why would Verizon continue to pursue the Yahoo deal despite the risks? According to Entner, the initial $4.8 billion price tag “is still just pocket change” to the wireless provider. By comparison, Verizon spent roughly $11 billion building out its cellular network last year. If $4.8 billion is already a drop in the bucket, then Verizon probably doesn't much care whether it gets a $2 million discount or a $2 billion discount.

The key thing for Verizon is that it gets to control Yahoo's beleaguered (but still massive) core properties, which include Tumblr, Flickr and a whole lot of news and fantasy sports sites. Verizon expects to sell advertising to the millions of people who visit those sites every month — and to gather up all the behavioral data they generate.

“They want Yahoo users so they can market to them,” said Jeff Kagan, an independent technology analyst.

In the United States, digital ad spending has become an even bigger business than TV ad spending, according to eMarketer, and it's only going to grow. By 2020, the research firm says, $113 billion will be spent on U.S. digital ads.

Verizon wants a slice of that revenue.​

 

[maflynn]

I still can't wrap my head around why they purchased those companies in the first place.

I agree, it makes no sense, Yahoo and AOL are so dissimilar to the core business of Verizon, it was a poor fit at best.