Having said that, let's look at the numbers....
I am updating my previous erroneous figures. There are 96 million households in the US. How many of these will wind up owning computers in the intermediate term and then proceeding to go onto the web? Mind you, probably 20% of more of the US population is functionally illiterate or does not speak English. Will we get 50 million web users by the year 2001? I would certainly doubt it. Anyway, how many of these people can AOL expect to have and hold? They claim to have 12 million+ AOL users and 2 million+ Compuserve users or shall we say something around 15 million. Now, I don't believe that figure, but the stock price acts as if it is legit. So, what is AOL's potential market share, especially with some of the other big players coming on stronger like MCI? 40% of the market. So, can AOL thru its two entitites aspire to 20 million members. I personally think both the 50 million and 40% (as a long run market share figure) are inflated. But, granting that, we get 20 million US potential. As I have said before, they can pad the numbers as much as they want with their international business, but certainly advertizers and merchants are not interested in those groups. Is McCann going to fly some Flowers over the pond to Holland? I don't think so. Is E-trade going to flog brokerage accounts to Europeans (yes, I know that they have something anticipated for the UK, but that would require an entirely different marketing pitch)? In my mind, the numbers just do not add up. But, that is why I am going to stick to calls instead of doing a straight long. The puppy has life in it yet. IMHO, it will all end in a class action suit over fudged membership numbers, et al, but that is LATER this is NOW. |
