She'll be right, mate (as they say in Australia). TC, during the last weeks, had bigger volumes on the updrafts and smaller volumes on the downswings, just as it should be. For you non-Japan-based Trans Cosmos investors, I shall step forward with this conviction:
(1) The yen is going to be stronger against the US dollar, later in the year, due to expanding economy and overseas money moving into Japan stocks. This will add quite a few percent to TC's value IN TERMS OF US DOLLARS.
(2) My private little bet: TC will at least triple this year, due to investors' unrelenting keenness on high-tech and net stocks and TC's multi-faceted net interests, and also due to the huge amounts of money going into stocks from April onwards (Japan's 10-year high-yield postal deposits maturing).
-------- AND FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, TODAYS NEWS --------
Thursday, March 2, 2000
INTERVIEW: Autobytel Japan Seeks Listing On TSE Mothers
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--The Japanese affiliate of Autobytel.com Inc. of the U.S., which connects car shoppers with dealers via the Internet, is seeking a listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market by April 2001, according to a top executive at the company.
Autobytel Japan K.K. executive vice president Yoshikuni Kato also said his company aims to start turning a profit in the fiscal year from November.
"We want to move into the black in the third year of business," Kato said Thursday in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
Autobytel Japan was set up by Autobytel.com and several
Japanese companies including Itochu Corp. (8001) and
Trans Cosmos Inc. (9715)</>. Established in June 1999, the company began offering online services last November. The company hasn't disclosed earnings results for the
June-October 1999 period or estimates for the current year
ending Oct. 31.
Kato said Japan's online business for new car shopping lags
that in the U.S. by three or four years but is likely to garner a market of 200,000 units to 300,000 units annually within the next three years. And his company is hoping to reach what its U.S. parent company has already achieved in its home market: a contract-per-pricing requests ratio of 28%.
Autobytel Japan currently receives an average 26,000
requests per month for new car pricing information, Kato
said. He declined to reveal the percentage of contracts his
company wins.
In the U.S. market, where annual new car sales topped
around 17.5 million in 1999 and are estimated at 16.5 million this year, Autobytel.com alone handles two million contracts per year of new car sales.
With Japan's needs for online car shopping growing rapidly,
Autobytel Japan will strengthen its dealer networks on its
website in a bid to build on its position as a front-runner. The company was the first to enter Japan's business-to-customer auto e-commerce business, but it was quickly followed by competitors such as CarPoint K.K., which is 45% owned by internet conglomerate Softbank
Corp. (9984).
So far, Autobytel Japan has tied up with some 250 car
dealers under major Japanese and foreign automakers. The
exception is Toyota Motor Corp. (7203). Toyota Motor, which
commands 40% of Japan's passenger car market, has said
it will mostly go it alone in business-to-customer online car sales.
The number of dealers working with Autobytel Japan is
expected to rise to more than 400 this April and to reach as
many as 800 to 1,000 by the end of this year, Kato said. |
