AOL’s Q2: Global Advertising Revenue Finally Up Again, Net Loss Narrows

Internet access, content and online advertising company AOL (which also owns TechCrunch) this morning reported its earnings for the second quarter of the year.

AOL reported a net loss of $11.8 million, compared with a year-ago loss of a little over $1 billion, which had included a major goodwill impairment charge and higher restructuring costs.

Total revenue came in at $542.2 million, down 8 percent compared to Q2 2010. Subscription revenue took another – albeit expected – hit with a 23 percent decrease.

However, advertising revenue (finally) grew 5 percent to $319 million after an essentially flat Q1 2011, notably despite the impact of AOL’s exit from certain countries and operations in recent times, with display advertising up a decent 14 percent.

Partially offsetting advertising revenue growth was a decline in search and contextual revenue of $17.6 million, the company said.

In a statement, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says the company’s return to global advertising growth for the first time since 2008 is another ‘meaningful step forward’ in the comeback of the AOL brand.

That may well be the case, but the road to sustainable profitability is still long.

AOL highlights its Huffington Post Media Group, which saw the number of unique visitors surpass 30 million (“and The New York Times”) in May 2011, according to comScore. User comments on The Huffington Post for Q2 surpassed 12 million, and recently topped 100 million since it was started.