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Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PeterR1700 who wrote (7455)	6/30/1999 6:59:00 AM
From: tktom	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

biz.yahoo.com Even the Aussi's are getting into the act of bill pay, even though from a much lower smaller starting point....(up five fold in three months) INTU 89 3/8 +3 1/4 delayed 20 mins - disclaimer Wednesday June 30, 5:59 am Eastern Time Australians open homes, wallets to Internet By Victoria Tait SYDNEY, June 30 (Reuters) - The number of Australians who have taken the Internet into their homes has soared, and the number of online shoppers has more than doubled, government data released on Wednesday showed. The surge in interest in cyberspace has been paralleled by online companies' rush to the bourse and -- a unique phenomenon Down Under -- small speculative miners fading from stock market trade and re-emerging, as share traders joke, as digger.coms. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian households with access to the Internet rose by almost 50 percent in the year February 1999, with 18.3 percent of the nation's homes now able to log on. The bureau said the 1.28 million households with Internet access in February 1999, up from 854,000 a year earlier, was expected to rise another 56 percent to about two million by February 2000. An estimated five million adults -- 37 percent of the country's adult population -- logged onto the Internet over the year to February, going online mainly at home, work, tertiary institutions and libraries. A total of 86 percent of household users accessed the Internet at least once a week and users 18 to 24 years old were busiest explorers of cyberspace, followed by those age 25 to 39. In the year, 480,000 adults, about 3.5 percent of Australia's adults, used the Internet to purchase or order goods and services for their private use, more than double 207,000 a year earlier. Internet shoppers made an estimated one million purchases and 77 percent of shoppers paid for their purchases online. The number of adults using the Internet to pay bills or transfer funds in the three months to February 1999, up nearly five-fold from 44,000 in the three months to February 1998. Dot.com mania has also spurred a rush of initial public offerings among Internet companies. Ecorp Ltd is the most high-profile such listing. Media mogul Kerry Packer's Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd sold 20 percent of its online division ecorp at A$1.20 a share to raise A$161 million (US$106 million) in a keenly awaited, heavily oversubscribed float. Brokers said the combination of the so-called Packer factor -- his dazzling ability to create wealth -- and Internet fever had investors scrambling to get ecorp stock. The shares debuted some two weeks ago at A$1.90, a 58 percent premium to their issue price and have since climbed as high as A$3.04. On Wednesday they slid 12 cents to A$2.65 as the overall market fell nearly one percent. Smaller upcoming floats include Reckon Ltd, Australasian franchisee of U.S. financial planning software giant Intuit Inc (Nasdaq:INTU - news) and regional publisher of Quicken software, and online media company Spike, which plans to raise about A$35 million. Both are set to start trading in July. Former minerals explorer Diamin Resources NL followed a well-worn trail on Tuesday and rejoined the Australian Stock Exchange as an Internet security business. Diamin shares, last traded at 6.5 cents on April 7, relisted at 20.6 cents and on Wednesday ended 10 cents higher at 37 cents. Among the some 20 small speculative miners turned cyber-stocks is Western Minerals NL , set to change its name to AdultShop.com Ltd to reflect its new business as an online sex toy retailer. ''Porn does well,'' Peter Struk, a dealer at securities house Reynolds & Co, said, adding adult Websites are a growth industry. ''That's not going to change.'' AdultShop.com plans to have its web site up and running in time for Christmas. (A$1 equals US$0.66) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------