AT&T to Promote Digital Advert Tech Platform Xandr to Microsoft

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