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AOL's Billion Dollar Profits
America Online, the world's richest internet company, beat analysts' expectations when it announced profits of more than $1.2bn in its financial year which ended on 30 June.
The company had sales of $6.8bn for the year, the bulk of which came from the subscriptions paid by its members, who are mainly in the United States.
AOL added 900,000 more subscribers in the year's last quarter, bringing its total membership to 23.2m.
But what encouraged analysts most was the rapid growth of its revenues from e-commerce and advertising, which grew by 95% in the quarter to $609m. It now makes up one-third of the company's revenues, which totalled $1.9bn for the quarter, a 39% increase on the previous year.
The company's profits doubled to $333m, or 13 cents per share, above estimates of 11 cents per share.
AOL also announced a major alliance with financial services company Citigroup to access an individual's financial data on the web and make payments easier.
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