AOL membership surpasses 29 million

New York, April 16:

America Online Inc., a unit of media and Internet powerhouse AOL Time Warner Inc., said on Monday worldwide membership for its AOL online service has surpassed 29 million and is up about one million in the last month.

The company, which reports first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, said AOL members were averaging about 70 minutes online daily, up from 64 minutes a year ago. On March 8, AOL said its membership rose to over 28 million.

"I think it's a little bit better than we expected," said Robert Martin, an analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey. "Whenever they report subscriber numbers, it factors into the revenue implications, but people generally believe that the subscription dollars will offset any weakness on the ad side."

AOL Time Warner said separately that it introduced a new version of its AOL Mobile service to cell phones that incorporates a shopping category and content from new partners including eBay Inc., the online auction site, and Travelocity.com Inc., the travel reservation site.

The new version of its AOL Mobile service is available through Sprint PCS Wireless Web and AT&T Digital PocketNet Premium service. The company also struck deals with Qsent, a provider of infrastructure and services for mobile Internet, and NGame, which develops games for the Web, for the new version.

Shares of AOL Time Warner were up 65 cents at $42.87 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock is down about 20 percent from year-ago levels, outperforming most Internet media shares, which are down 90 percent from year-ago levels. (Reuters)