Ideas & Trends
Monday, August 09, 1999
Richard Hefter,Editor
Just What the Analyst Ordered
Last week we brought you an interview with Matei Mihalca, Asia Internet analyst for Merrill Lynch, in which he underscored the need for business-to-business Internet services in Asia.
“One area we think is critical is business-to-business Internet computing. That is phenomenally well suited for Asia because Asia is really the world's manufacturing center,” he told us.
Well, in the wake of story – tipped by a reader of ours, Robert Botik of Austin – we learned about ProNetLink.com (PNLK), a service that matches businesses looking to conduct trade around the world.
ProNet's Web site was launched in just April of this year, but the company already has had close to 5,000 people sign on as members (60-day trial period and $29 a month thereafter), according to company chairman Glenn Zagoren. In addition to locating potential markets and trade partners, ProNetLink members may conduct key business functions online, participate in live trade event netcasts and communicate in real-time with trading partners.
Zagoren told us the New York-based Web site has been averaging over a million hits a month. They've had 110,000 user sessions in the four months they've been live, much of the activity spurred by a promotional blitz in June when the company advertised on CNN, CNNfn, Headline News, CNBC, Dateline NBC, 60 Minutes, 20/20, 48 Hours, and morning drive time radio in Chicago and LA.
“We're getting a lot of traffic, especially when you consider we're first and foremost business to business,” Zagoren said.
He added that ProNet is different from other international trading Web sites in that it's not a portal linking to sites. “We have a database of 3.2 million companies from 122 countries. When we bring somebody into our environment, they never have to leave.”
Revenue is from membership subscriptions; commissions with online partners like Aon Insurance, AT&T (their Web host), and UPS Online (which provides their shipping); advertising; and their netcasting center.
“Netcasting is the most exciting part of our site,” he said. “We're the first company bringing daily trade news live to the Internet.”
Again, we learned of ProNet from one of our readers. We appreciate more feedback on our articles…and more ideas.
We liked ProNet when we visited the site. And as for the Asia theme, we learned this little tidbit in its News section:
“The ISP market in China is opening up and revenues are expected to exceed the U.S. equivalent of $4 billion by 2003. China, in fact, is the fastest growing Internet market in Asia and is set to become a global leader by 2004. The number of Chinese Internet users is expected to climb to 6.7 million during the next year from about 2.1 million users currently. In fact, the country's Internet base is expected to grow at a rate of 60% per year over the course of the next five years. While China's ISPs have been limited by controls over access to the fastest data streams, the ISP market is opening up and the country's Internet industry is expected to exceed $160 million this year.”
ProNetLink, which went public in late 1997 through a reverse merger, has seen its stock run up by day traders to as high as 8 and as much volume as 21 million shares in a single day.
Today, shares closed at 2 1/32 on volume of 284,000
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