FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (04/18/2000) - America Online Inc. (AOL) closed its third quarter with revenue up 47 percent to US$1.8 billion, compared to the same quarter last year. Most of the revenue -- $1.15 billion -- came from subscription fees, while the rest originated primarily from advertising and commerce, the company said today.
For the firm's third fiscal quarter, ended March 31, 2000, AOL recorded net income -- fully taxed and excluding one-time items -- of US$271 million, or 11 cents per share, a 161 percent increase compared with $104 million, or 4 cents per share, in the same quarter last year, the company said in a statement issued today.
Including one-time gains and charges, net income was $438 million, or 17 cents per share, compared with $411 million, or 16 cents per share in the third quarter of fiscal 1999, AOL said.
Wall Street had expected the U.S. ISP (Internet service provider) to post a 9 cents per share gain, according to a consensus estimate from 29 analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.
AOL added 1.7 million new subscribers to its AOL online service resulting in a total subscriber base of 22.2 million members. AOL subscribers spent an average of 64 minutes online every day during the third quarter, the company said.
Including other services owned by the company, such as CompuServe, AOL added 2 million new subscribers worldwide in the third quarter for a total of 25.8 million subscribers.
AOL's instant messaging service ICQ nabbed 9.3 million new users during the quarter -- an average of 100,000 new users per day --- giving a total of 62.4 million registered users. On average, ICQ users kept the real-time chat service active on their computers for almost three hours every day and used it actively 75 minutes per day during the third quarter, AOL said. The ISP plans to launch ICQ 2000A, a new version of the instant messaging software, next week.
Meanwhile, the company's Netscape Enterprise division grew its revenue 8 percent to $126 million compared with the previous quarter, AOL said.
Regarding its planned $350 billion merger with Time Warner Inc., first announced in January, AOL said that in the third quarter the two companies launched several cross-promotional initiatives involving Time Warner media properties like Warner Music, Time Magazine and CNN Interactive.
AOL, based in Dulles, Virginia, can be reached at http://www.aol.com/.