AOL Surpasses 19 Million Members; Next Generation AOL 5.0 Fuels Continued Membership Growth.

DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 25, 1999--

America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), the world's leading interactive services company, today announced that worldwide membership of its AOL service has exceeded 19 million.

Over the past year, AOL has added more than 5 million members.

AOL member growth is benefiting from the increasing popularity of e-commerce and families' back-to-school focus on going online. In addition, the Company said that it is confident that its next-generation AOL 5.0 service will continue to drive continued subscriber growth.

Bob Pittman, America Online's President and Chief Operating Officer, said: "We are gratified by the continued strong growth in AOL membership and are continuing to improve this premium service.

"Our rapid growth highlights the power of our mass-market brand and broad appeal of our service's convenience and ease-of-use. And our next-generation AOL 5.0 service is adding to this appeal, as underscored by its record rate of adoption.

"We're confident that the AOL 5.0 experience will drive continued membership growth, member retention, time spent online and e-commerce, as well as extend AOL's leadership to multiple interactive devices and high-speed access networks."

In addition to this membership growth, there has been a significant increase in AOL member usage -- underscoring that the service is becoming more and more essential to its members' everyday lives. The improved metrics include:

-- AOL members are averaging 55 minutes daily online, an increase of 8 minutes over one year ago;

-- 1.25 million simultaneous users at peak times (compared to 820,000 one year ago);

-- 80 million e-mails sent daily (40 million a year ago);

-- 476 million instant messages sent per day (290 million a year ago);

-- More than 151 million stock quotes daily (80 million a year ago);

-- 3.5 billion Web URLs served a day (1.4 billion a year ago); and

-- More than 11 million members are now shopping online.

About America Online, Inc.

Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services.

America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 19 million members, and CompuServe, with more than 2.2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; the Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers; AOL MovieFone, the nation's No. 1 movie listing guide and ticketing service; and Spinner Networks and NullSoft, Inc., leaders in Internet music.

Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the Company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.