Oath Inc.

Oath Inc.
Subsidiary
Industry
Predecessor
Founded June 13, 2017 (2017-06-13)
Headquarters New York City, New York and Sunnyvale, California, U.S
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 K. Guru Gowrappan (CEO)
Brands
Services
Number of employees
 14,000 (2017)[2][3]
Parent Verizon Communications
Website www.oath.com

Oath Inc. (stylized as Oath:) is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications[4] that serves as the umbrella company of its digital content subdivisions, including AOL and Yahoo!.[5][6][7] Verizon acquired AOL on June 23, 2015[8][9] and Yahoo!'s operating business on June 13, 2017.[10] Within Oath, AOL and Yahoo! maintain their respective brands.[11]

Tim Armstrong, Oath's former CEO, said the new company name was chosen to convey Oath's commitment to the digital media business.[2]

Operations

Oath Inc. is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. It is part of Verizon's Media and Telematics division.[12] The company maintains dual headquarters in the former AOL and Yahoo! headquarters in Manhattan, New York, and Sunnyvale, California.[13] Oath has offices elsewhere throughout the United States, in addition to Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and United Kingdom.[14] Tim Armstrong, AOL's former CEO, was selected as Oath's chief executive.[15] As of June 2017, Oath employs about 12,000 people.[15]

History

Verizon announced a $4.4 billion deal to acquire AOL in May 2015.[16] The deal was an effort by Verizon to expand its technology and media offerings.[16] The deal officially closed a month later.[9][16]

A year after the completion of the AOL acquisition, Verizon announced a $4.8 billion deal for Yahoo!'s core internet business, looking to invest in the internet company's search, news, finance, sports, video, email and Tumblr products.[17] Yahoo! announced in September and December 2016 two major internet security breaches affecting more than a billion customers.[18] As a result, Verizon lowered its offer for Yahoo! by $350 million to $4.48 billion.[19]

Two months before closing the deal for Yahoo!, Verizon announced it would place Yahoo! and AOL under the Oath umbrella.[20] The deal closed on June 13, 2017, and Oath was launched.[21] Upon completion of the deal, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer resigned.[21] Yahoo! operations not acquired in the deal were renamed Altaba, a holding company whose primary assets are its 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba Group and 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan.[21] After the merger, Oath cut 15 percent of the Yahoo-AOL workforce.[2]

In April 2018, Helios and Matheson acquired the movie listings website Moviefone from Oath. As part of the transaction, Verizon took a stake in MoviePass stock.[22][23]

In May 2018, Verizon and Samsung agreed to terms that would preload four Oath apps onto Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones.[24] The agreement includes Oath’s Newsroom, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, and go90 mobile video apps, and the deal includes integration of native ads from Oath into both the Oath apps and Samsung’s own Galaxy and Game Launcher apps.[25][26]

On September 12 2018, it was announced that K. Guru Gowrappan would succeed Tim Armstrong as CEO, effective October 1.[27]

Brands

Some of the digital brands under Oath include:[28]

Divested

Verizon has partial ownership of Moviefone's parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc.

Discontinued

References

  1. ↑ Hackett, Robert (3 August 2016). "Read What Yahoo Is Telling Employees About the Verizon Deal". Fortune.com. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Todd Spangler (June 19, 2017). "Brent Corley Unveils Oath: AOL-Yahoo Combo Is as Big as Netflix and Looking to Expand". Variety. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
  3. ↑ Lomas, Natasha. "Latest round of Verizon layoffs at Oath affects <4% of staff globally". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  4. ↑ "What is Oath; Verizon's new venture combining Yahoo, AOL". The Indian Express. 2017-06-14. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  5. ↑ Spangler, Todd (June 16, 2017). "Verizon Closes $4.5 Billion Yahoo Deal, Marissa Mayer Resigns". Variety. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ Wallenstein, Andrew (June 22, 2017). "With Yahoo Deal Done, Verizon Digital Network Steps Into Spotlight". Variety. Retrieved July 20, 2017.
  7. ↑ Fiegerman, Seth. "Yahoo and AOL will form new company called ... Oath". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  8. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (23 June 2015). "Verizon completes its acquisition of AOL for $4.4B". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  9. 1 2 Snider, Mike (23 June 2015). "Verizon completes AOL acquisition, readies mobile video service". USA Today. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  10. ↑ Goel, Vindu (13 June 2017). "Verizon completes $4.48 billion purchase of Yahoo, ending an era". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  11. ↑ "Verizon Announces New Name Brand for AOL and Yahoo: Oath". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  12. ↑ Smith, Jake. "Verizon, NFL strike deal to bring game streaming to any mobile network - ZDNet". Retrieved 18 April 2018.
  13. ↑ Schubarth, Cromwell (14 June 2017). "Confirmed: Combined Yahoo, AOL cutting 2,100 jobs". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  14. ↑ "Our office locations". Oath Inc. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  15. 1 2 Spangler, Todd (19 June 2017). "Tim Armstrong unveils Oath: AOL-Yahoo combo is as big as Netflix and looking to expand". Variety. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  16. 1 2 3 DiChristopher, Tom (23 June 2015). "Verizon closes AOL acquisition". CNBC. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  17. ↑ Goel, Vindu (25 July 2016). "Verizon announces $4.8 billion deal for Yahoo's internet business". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  18. ↑ Goel, Vindu; Perlroth, Nicole (14 December 2016). "Yahoo says 1 billion user accounts were hacked". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  19. ↑ Fiegerman, Seth (21 February 2017). "Verizon cuts Yahoo deal price by $350 million". CNN. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  20. ↑ Chokshi, Niraj; Goel, Vindu (3 April 2017). "Verizon announces new name brand for AOL and Yahoo: Oath". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  21. 1 2 3 "Verizon closes Yahoo deal, Mayer steps down". Reuters. 13 June 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  22. ↑ Smith, Gerry (April 5, 2018). "MoviePass Acquires Moviefone to Bolster Film-a-Day Service". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  23. ↑ "MoviePass Just Bought Moviefone. Here's What It Means for Moviegoers". Fortune. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  24. ↑ Karl Bode (4 May 2018). "Verizon Brings Its Oath, Yahoo Bloatware to Samsung Phones". DSLReports.com. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  25. ↑ Chaim Gartenberg (2 May 2018). "Verizon is putting Oath bloatware like Go90 on its Galaxy S9 phones". The Verge. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  26. ↑ Garett Sloane (2 May 2018). "Verizon Uses Mobile Might to Get Oath Apps Onto Samsung Phones". AdAge. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  27. ↑ Brian Fung (12 September 2018). "Verizon says Oath CEO Tim Armstrong is stepping down". The Washington Post.
  28. ↑ "Oath brands". June 16, 2017. Retrieved June 16, 2017.
  29. ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/17516266/verizon-shutting-down-go90-original-video-content-app
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