Check it out.....
With around 25 million shares short on an outstanding share base of 94 million, I wonder who else will step up and borrow to sell....
On the fundamental side, here are a few keynotes from the last conference call for your reading pleasure. (These were probably not covered over at the Jesse Berst ZDNet site. I pass them on for your edification, or in some of your cases, your mastication. Enjoy...)
The target for the December quarter was about 800,000 new customer adds, up double from the prior quarter. They actually added 1,240,000, more than 3 times the number added in the September quarter.
Online service revenues were up 56% over last year. Up about 13% sequentially. Revenue capture per member per month for the September quarter was $16.86. In the December quarter, it increased to $16.95. 80% of users have switched to $19.95 unlimited pricing.
Other revenues, which include electronic commerce, advertising, etc., increased 136% over the December year-ago quarter and were up 50% sequentially to about $58 million.
Total electronic commerce, advertising, etc came to almost $2 per member in the December quarter, up from $1.35 in the September quarter.
Marketing costs came in at 36% of revenues. Will go to 25% level or less for remainder of 1997.
Cash and short term investments increased from $102 million at the end of September to about $130 million at the end of December. Due largely to a large number of fixed renewals under the one- and two-year prepayment plans.
Targets for March '97 quarter:
P&L = breakeven.
Net additional cash due to member prepayments on 1 and 2 year plan = $30 million.
Will be cash flow positive for March qtr.
Planning for Other Revenue (non-subscription) of $70-80 million, up sequentially from $58 million. May do even better on advertising due to huge increase in hours online used...
Members were on 102 million hours in December, versus 46 million per month average during the September quarter.
Total international membership now exceeds 500,000. They are in Germany, France and UK, and recently added Austria and Switzerland. Japan rolls out this spring/summer.
AOL's member-to-modem ratio will be reduced to 20-to-1. Expect the major uptick in usage they have seen is about what they will see.
While 20-to-1 seems high for services like ISPs who target heavy users, AOL has a more mainstream audience.
Driveway (push technology) will be previewed this Spring
Tonight's question: When a stock won't go down on bad (no, make that horrible) news, what does it mean?
Brian |
