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AOL IN EUROPE

AOL Europe, the subsidiary of AOL America is facing a relatively difficult expansion time in Europe and the UK. According to the NUA International, the competition is coming from many sources, the most prominent one being Freeserve, a company that has offered "no fee internet services in the U.K.

Although AOL Europe ignored the competition, claiming that free service is not a valid business model, Freeserve signed up more than 50,000 subscribers in two months, forcing AOL to introduce a

stripped-down version of AOL called Netscape Online (Koranteng, 1999).

In fact, the only American "export" has been well received is Yahoo which produced localized versions in eight languages. However, AOL's 1998 record of 2.7 million subscribers across Europe and more than $375 million in annual revenues, AOL is the biggest ISP, but it is also the one that has had to change its model the most (NUA, 1999).

AOL's business model did not appeal to many European users, who found the graphics and obtuse. AOL formed AOL Europe in 1995, in a 50-50 JV with Bertelsmann, a major German provider. The net users who signed up first were professionals who disliked AOL's graphics look and its long download time, preferring instead the more conservative local sites such as Deutsche Telekom's T-Online.

AOL finds itself second to the leading ISPs in Germany and Britain, Europe's biggest markets. And this was before the Freeserve launch(NUA, 1999).

One strategic mistake AOL made was to simply react to the "numbers" of potential users in the Economic Union, and to also assume that the EU is really what it says it is. The infrastructure of the Economic Union is rigid and carefully controlled. And the laws and barriers which once had hindered trade are being removed.

However, unlike the EU, the European cultures which make up the EU are an ever-changing patchwork of influences, ethnic backgrounds, religions and trends that blend chaotically wi...

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AOL IN EUROPE. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:45, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1706138.html