Verizon Considers Selling Parts Of AOL, Yahoo, Other Media Assets

Verizon is considering selling off its media assets, including parts of Yahoo and AOL, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing unnamed sources.

This would show a drastic change of strategy from Verizon’s formerly high ambitions in digital media. The sales process includes private equity firms Apollo Global Management, which could yield a price of $4 billion to $5 billion if a deal goes through, according to WSJ.

In its first quarter earnings results, Verizon reported a year-over-year net increase of 25.4 percent, resulting in a $5.4 billion haul, according to PYMNTS. Earnings were $1.31 per share, beating out the expectation from analysts of $1.29.

Verizon is also doing what it can to put 5G into the world. The company announced last week that the millimeter-wave 5G networks, called Ultra Wideband by the company, would be out in 71 cities nationwide. In addition, the company’s 5G Home Internet service would become available in 33 cities by early May, Verizon announced.

PYMNTS also reported that the company is working in partnership with some corporate clients to deploy the 5G tech, partnering with Cooler Screens in order to let that company power interactive panels at Walgreens.

In terms of other big mobile companies, AT&T reported a net income in Q1 of $7.5 billion, or $1.04 per share, an increase of $4.6 billion overall and 63 cents per share over 2020 figures. And the earnings per share were posted at 86 cents, which beat analyst expectations of 78 cents.

AT&T didn’t mention 5G as much as Verizon did, with the former only mentioning it once as opposed to the 36 times Verizon talked about it.

But the company is still invested in boosting its 5G reach, spending $23.4 billion on the wireless spectrum auction earlier in the year, which landed it a highly coveted C-band spectrum chunk. That investment was nearly doubled by Verizon, though, which spent $45.5 billion on a piece of the radio spectrum.