AT&T has been exploring options for a few of its property to deal with its wi-fi enterprise.
Picture:
Justin Sullivan/Getty Photos
AT&T Inc.
T 2.00%
will promote its internet marketing platform Xandr Inc. to
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT 0.64%
, ending its bid to develop into a significant drive in digital advertising.
Microsoft stated Xandr’s digital advert market will assist increase its digital promoting and retail media capabilities. Monetary phrases weren’t disclosed. Final yr, The Wall Avenue Journal reported that AT&T was contemplating a possible sale of its digital promoting operations, because it scaled again its media ambitions.
AT&T acquired the promoting expertise firm previously generally known as AppNexus in 2018 for about $1.6 billion with an intention to problem heavyweights akin to Google guardian Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Fb within the digital advert market.
Xandr’s on-line advert alternate permits advertisers to purchase house throughout 1000’s of internet sites and goal audiences. AT&T executives hoped to attraction to entrepreneurs by combining the unit with TV advert house on channels akin to TNT and CNN in addition to its information about wi-fi subscribers.
The unit didn’t yield the explosive income progress its house owners hoped to generate and sometimes struggled with technical issues acquainted to tech firms that make investments billions of {dollars} a yr of their advert alternate expertise.
The media and telecom conglomerate has been exploring options for a few of its property to deal with its wi-fi enterprise and bolster its stability sheet. AT&T agreed to promote a stake in its DirecTV enterprise to private-equity agency TPG and struck a deal to merge its WarnerMedia enterprise with
Discovery Inc.
Microsoft’s search promoting enterprise had income of $8.5 billion within the yr ending June 30, 2021, making up about 5% of the tech large’s income. The corporate makes cash by promoting adverts on varied companies, together with its Bing search engine, business-focused social-media platform LinkedIn and in its videogaming platform.
Write to Kimberly Chin at kimberly.chin@wsj.com
Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Firm, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
