On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published a report claiming that the five-year old, strategic partnership between AT&T and Yahoo! was under stress, in part because AT&T was no longer having trouble attracting broadband subscribers and had been approached by other Internet companies willing to pay to gain access to the AT&T customer base. At stake is about $250 million in fees that AT&T pays to Yahoo! each year.
AT&T and Yahoo! issued a joint statement to respond to the speculation regarding their partnership. The companies said they are constantly discussing opportunities to expand the relationship and associated revenue streams. Current and future plans include:
- Earlier this year, the companies introduced advertising on the front page of the co-branded portal;
- Later this month, the companies are introducing advertising on their
co-branded mail service; - AT&T and Yahoo! are discussing ways to expand the partnership in the mobile arena, now that AT&T has 100% ownership of Cingular (after its acquisition of BellSouth);
- Yahoo! services will be introduced into AT&T’s IPTV experience later this year.
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