AOL and Yahoo will be combined into a new unit called Oath following Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo, the largest wireless carrier in the United States confirmed on Monday. AOL Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong took to Twitter to validate previous reports on the matter while also sharing Oath’s logo that says “Oath: A Verizon company.” Coupled with a hashtag #TakeTheOath, Armstrong boasted about the new company serving over a billion users and operating more than 20 major brands, adding how the unit is expected to be officially established this summer.
It’s still unclear whether AOL and Yahoo’s brands will live on in some shape or form following the merger, though the consolidation itself isn’t particularly surprising seeing how it’s been rumored about since last summer. According to previous reports, combining AOL and Yahoo into a single company was Verizon’s plan from the beginning, ever since the telecom giant started considering the acquisition of the Sunnyvale-based Internet company. Seeing how Verizon is only planning to acquire Yahoo’s core business in the United States, the Yahoo brand will likely survive the deal thanks to international ventures like Yahoo Japan, industry watchers point out. In a statement provided to Business Insider on Monday, an AOL spokeswoman said Verizon will launch “one of the most disruptive brand companies in digital” come this summer, once again reiterating how the New York City-based wireless carrier has big expectations of its latest acquisition.
Verizon started negotiating a takeover of Yahoo’s Internet business in mid-2016, but the company’s efforts were slowed down to a crawl following two major hacking scandals that Yahoo was in the center of. That turn of events led to numerous delays of the transaction that’s now set to be completed by the end of the current quarter of the year, Yahoo previously revealed. Verizon will reportedly pay $4.8 billion for the company’s core unit, approximately $1.2 billion less than what it was willing to pay before Yahoo was hit with the aforementioned scandals. Time will tell whether the deal will prove to be a good move for Verizon in the long term, but more details on the matter are bound to follow shortly.