Sources: AT&T is in discussions to sell Xandr to Indian ad tech company InMobi; the mismanaged ad unit has annual revenue of ~$300-$380M and losses of $50-$90M
AT&T is in discussions to sell its ad unit to Indian ad tech giant InMobi, sources tell Axios. Tweets: @sarafischer , @aripap , @loupas , @awolk , @loudmouthjulia , @reckless , and @karlbode Tweets: Sara Fischer / @sarafischer : Scoop: Xandr is losing a lot of money, AT&T is desperate to get it off the books — Sources say it's been in talks w InMobi about a deal — Hoping to get $1B for it, seems very unlikely — $50-$90m annual losses https://www.axios.com/... Ari Paparo / @aripap : Axios says ATT / Xandr in a “fire sale” to InMobi. Not the best news: https://www.axios.com/... Lou Paskalis / @loupas : “after months of mismanagement” So, Xandr was created on Sept 25, 2018. In that context, @ATT has mismanaged @xandr for thirty-three months, twenty-six days and some hours. It's an absolute testament to the power of the component brands that there is still any asset value left. https://twitter.com/... Alan Wolk / @awolk : AT&T giving 2010s-era Verizon a real run for its money https://www.axios.com/... Julia Alexander / @loudmouthjulia : I suppose if you're no longer ~really~ into supporting a TV business, and the ad-tech company you bought to help that business is bleeding money, selling it is the only logical thing left to do. Arguably, not getting into any kind of TV business was the more logical thing to do https://twitter.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : I continue to believe that a workable antitrust policy in the United States would be to flatly prohibit AT&T from buying anything https://www.axios.com/... Karl Bode / @karlbode : every single time giant phone companies try to do stuff outside of their core competencies (running and building networks, lobbying the government to kill competition) it doesn't go particularly well. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Xandr was supposed to be AT&T's answer to the ad duopoly — the data-and-marketplace play built on pay-TV reach — but by 2020 it had been demoted from standalone ambition to a unit folded under WarnerMedia. Now sources tell Axios AT&T is shopping the whole thing to InMobi as a distressed asset: ~$300-$380M in annual revenue against $50-$90M in losses, with AT&T reportedly still hoping for $1B even as sources call that price unrealistic.
The timing matters: this comes as AT&T has separately pressed regulators on Google's grip on the ad sector, yet its own challenger is bleeding cash and headed for a bargain-bin exit. A telco-built ad tech platform selling at a discount to an Indian buyer is the clearest signal yet that scale in advertising accrued to the incumbents, not the challengers.
First-order effects
- AT&T gets relief on a unit losing $50-$90M a year and clears another non-core asset off the books as it narrows back toward connectivity, while InMobi gains a U.S.-based data and programmatic footprint it could never have built organically at this price.
- Xandr's employees and advertiser clients face ownership churn mid-flight — the reported 'fire sale' framing signals AT&T's leverage in the talks is minimal, putting integration risk on whoever lands the asset.
Second-order effects
- A cut-price Xandr resets valuations for every remaining independent ad tech platform: if a carrier-backed stack with hundreds of millions in revenue fetches well under its ask, rivals' fundraising and exit math get marked down too.
- The walled gardens' position strengthens — advertisers weighing Xandr's uncertainty have less reason not to consolidate budgets further into Google, Amazon, and Meta-style platforms, the same shift already visible when Apple's ATT changes pushed ad dollars toward the biggest buyers.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward telecom-media conglomerates systematically exiting ad infrastructure rather than fixing it: assets get carved up by function, and the eventual resolution — a marketplace sold separately from the TV-linked ad sales business — fits how these units unwind once the strategic rationale dies.
- If carriers keep retreating, independent programmatic consolidates around a handful of scaled survivors and foreign buyers picking up discounted Western assets, narrowing the alternative-to-Google lane that AT&T itself argued to regulators needed protecting.
The trend: Telco-built ad tech platforms are exiting en masse, with independent programmatic assets consolidating at distressed prices while ad spend concentrates in the largest platforms.