AOL to increase revenue from mobile-advertising (USA)
American global internet services and media company, AOL, is working towards increasing the revenue share from mobile advertising in the next 18 months. According to reports, Tim Armstrong, CEO, AOL has said that currently advertising on mobile devices accounts for a tiny percentage of sales which he hopes to increase to 10 percent or more of overall ad sales.
As per sources, the company’s revenue from advertising went up from 52 percent in the previous year to 60 percent this year. The CEO also said that with increasing number of users switching to smartphones and companies focusing on mobile advertising as a source of revenue, the M&A activity in this sphere is expected to rise.
Further, strong competition from Google and Facebook have caused a decline in the internet business of AOL, which reported a net loss of US$ 782.5 million in the last year, causing the CEO to look for better ways to target customers.
TalkTalk cuts of 13% workforce (UK)
UK’s second- largest residential broadband provider, TalkTalk, is going to cut its workforce by almost 13% as part of efforts to improve profitability.
Dido Harding, chief executive has announced that the company was cutting 580 jobs from its 4,500-strong UK workforce. The staff cuts, which are likely to be achieved through compulsory redundancies by April 30, are the first manifestation of Ms Harding’s cost-cutting drive since she became chief executive last March.
Last November, she set a medium-term target for TalkTalk’s profit margin to hit 20% at the level of EBITDA. The margin stood at 13.6% in the six months to September 30.
TalkTalk is the product of several acquisitions, including the purchase of AOL’s UK internet access business in 2007 and the British broadband operations of Tiscali, the Italian telecoms group, in 2009.
