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Technology Stocks : OneMain.com (ONEM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robert evans who wrote (567)	9/23/1999 8:54:00 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 614

ONEM anticipates 1 MM subscribers: OneMaincom Expects 1 Mln Subscribers in 2000: Bloomberg Forum Vienna, Virginia, Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- OneMain.com Inc., an Internet-service provider for rural areas of the U.S., expects to reach 1 million subscribers by the end of the first quarter next year, from about 540,000 now. OneMain.com has increased its subscriber base largely by acquiring regional Internet providers with about 15,000 to 25,000 subscribers each, Chief Executive Stephen Smith told the Bloomberg Forum. The company will continue to acquire small providers until it reaches 1 million subscribers, and then will focus on adding customers through internal growth, he said. ``OneMain's focus is on very small markets in America that are typically overlooked by big national providers,' Smith said. Those companies include America Online Inc., the No. 1 online company with more than 20 million users. ``AOL is a long- distance call in 50 percent of our markets,' he said. When it reaches 1 million customers, OneMain will be about half the size of No. 4 U.S. online service EarthLink Network Inc., which said last month it expects to have 2 million subscribers by the end of the year. Vienna, Virginia-based OneMain.com will introduce World Wide Web guides for its geographic areas in November to increase revenue from online advertisements. When OneMain.com customers dial into the service, OneMain's computers will detect what region they're calling from and bring up local information such as weddings, the police blotter and hunting and fishing reports. Low Turnover The company has found that its ``churn' rate, or the percentage of people who cancel their accounts each month, is about 2 percent to 2.5 percent, about half that of the average Internet-access company, Smith said. ``We've seen that because there's less to do in these markets for entertainment and shopping, you get much more utility,' he said. All of OneMain.com sales now come from subscription fees. It should gain about $1 per customer each month from non-subscriber sources, such as online sponsorships, by the third quarter of 2000, Smith said. Since OneMain.com first sold stock to the public in March, its shares have fallen below its offering price of $22 each. The shares peaked on their first day of trading at 39 9/16, and have fallen to about 16. While Internet-access companies are ``out of favor' with investors, ``our business model is so different,' Smith said. ``We think there's upside to our stock.' Sep/22/1999 13:59