United States-based telecom major Verizon on Monday confirmed that it is buying the core internet business of Yahoo Inc in a $4.83-billion (approximately Rs 32,000 crore) deal, The Associated Press reported. One of the biggest telecom companies in the US, Verizon will be buying out Yahoo's real estate holdings, while Yahoo will keep its stakes in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Yahoo Japan Corp, as well as some patents, which are worth $40 billion (Rs 2.6 lakh crore) in total.

Set up in 1994, Yahoo saw great success in the late 90s and early 2000s through its search, news, shopping and email ventures. However, with the advent of Google and Facebook, it has not been able to keep up. Yahoo still received 1 billion visitors a month, but this was not enough for the once-thriving internet company to survive. At its highest, Yahoo was worth $125 billion (around Rs 8.4 lakh crore) in January 2000.

Yahoo’s Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer is expected to leave the company after the deal is completed, having been unable to turn its fortunes around. Verizon is expected to combine Yahoo's operations with that of AOL – another once-popular internet company it owns.