CNET: AOL subscribers, sales keep sliding
About one in twelve subscribers ditched AOL in 2003, according to the company's most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company also indicated that the remaining 24.3 million subscribers will reap a lower revenue per person due to continued price pressures.
In late October 2003, MarketingWonk extrapolated (from a 700,000 subscriber loss) a no-more-AOL date of August 2013. One quarter later, a loss of 830,000 subscribers put the company just about on track for its predicted demise. The new figures paint a slightly more optimistic picture. If the loss rate continued unabated from the new figures, AOL would lose its very last subscriber at about 2:15 p.m. on January 14, 2014. At that point, it is supposed, the AOL advertising reps will begin returning the phone calls to the mid- and small-sized agencies.
