BNXS

AOL recently posted its Q4 2010 earnings which showed that they were 26 percent down compared to the same period in 2009. Mark you this is exactly the same drop that was witnessed in Q3. In Q4 2009 the revenues were 806.7 while in the last quarter ending December 31, 2010 the revenue totaled to $596 million. Although the results were a drop from the previous year they beat the expectations by around $8 million. It was expected that the company would realize a$0.42 per share if the revenues got to 587.37 million. Display advertising brought in $151.1 million which was a 14 percent drop from Q4 2009. Search advertising had $96.4 million. The total revenue realized from ads was $331.6 million. This was a decline of $137 million (29 percent) from the same period the previous year. At least $80.2 million of the decline was related to the absence of the revenue from ICQ and Bebo which were sold earlier in 2010.  The decline was also linked to the shutting down of operations in Europe among other reasons. In Q4 AOL acquired two properties, About.me and Pictela. The purchases cost a total of $31.4 million. The CEO of the company Tim Armstrong expressed satisfaction on the performance of the company taking into consideration that the year had began with significant restructuring of AOL’s operations. According to him the balance sheet had some improvements and the company had also introduced a number of new products and developed a winning culture. The company has set aggressive goals for itself in 2011 as discussed in an earlier post.