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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: djane who wrote (7664)	10/1/1999 12:30:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Schwartz comments at BofA conference (via G* yahoo thread) Top>Business & Finance>Investments>Sectors>Services>Communications Services>GSTRF (Globalstar Telecommun.) BS today at B of A Conference by: esqladyq 14054 of 14079 Highlights from the Banc of America Securities 29th Annual Investment Conference Globalstar Chairman and CEO Bernard Schwartz spoke about Globalstar at our 29th Annual Investment Conference in San Francisco this afternoon. Below are highlights from his presentation: * Mr. Schwartz reiterated his confidence in the market for satellite telephony and in his marketing partners' ability to sell the Globalstar service. He noted that demand for phone services has always exceeded supply and that in 75% of the world there is no> phone service. * He expects pricing to the end-user to be around $1.25 to $1.50 per minute. The gateways are working on standardizing charges so that all users is any area get the same pricing no matter who their service provider is, i.e., a subscriber for the U.S. and one from Japan get charged the same amount when they travel to Europe and take a local call. * Nine gateways are operational and a total of 38 gateways have been shipped. Mr. Schwartz expects all 38 to be operational by March 31, 2000. This should cover approximately 85% of the world. * All of the 40 orbiting satellites are functioning well. The system's performance is tracking almost perfectly with specifications. The service is posting approximately 90% call completion and 95% call retention. Call quality also remains excellent, thanks to Globalstar's decision to use CDMA technology, in Mr. Schwartz's opinion. * Mr. Schwartz is comfortable with his gateway operators' performance. They have both a carrot and a stick to keep motivated. They have the carrot of high margins and although they do not have minimum numbers of minutes they need to sell, they can lose their gateway rights, without receiving any reimbursement, if they do not meet their> territory plans. * Globalstar has three target markets: 1) Cellular fill-in, which he believes is Posted: 9/30/1999 6:37 pm EDT as a reply to: Msg 1 by YahooFinance B of A part 2 by: esqladyq 14055 of 14079 * Globalstar has three target markets: 1) Cellular fill-in, which he believes is most important in developing countries where cellular service is poor; 2) vertical markets such as the military and companies such as oil and gas with remote locations; and 3)international roaming that can guarantee business travelers the ability to always make a phone call. * Telephone manufacturers Qualcomm (QCOM-BUY-$187.75){1}, Ericsson and Telital can manufacture 40,000 handsets per month, but Globalstar is in negotiations with them to add additional production lines to expand handset manufacturing capacity so that they can reach the company's target of 1.0 million subscribers by year-end 2000. * Official service rollout is at Geneva Telecom next week, which will take place from October 10 to October 17. * According to Mr. Schwartz, Globalstar needs 220,000 subscribers for operational breakeven, 550,000 to cover debt service and 1.0 million to fund the construction of the second-generation satellites. This model assumes that each subscriber uses the phone approximately 160 minutes per month. He notes that one million subscribers represents only 16% of the systems' capacity and 29% of its 2002 business plan. Our BAS projections, however, are much more conservative, and require roughly twice the subscribers to reach those milestones, primarily because we assume lower minutes of use per subscriber. We think these milestones are still a relatively easy target to achieve, even with our lower minutes of use per month assumptions. * Mr. Schwartz noted that Globalstar's business plan calls for relatively low subscriber targets in any one country. He expects only 80,000 subscribers in the U.S. by 2002 for example. He indicates that his own service providers' plans are much higher than the company's targets. * Mr. Schwartz expects to add additional services, especially on the data side to the current system over the next few years and also expects handsets to get smaller. He also expects the second-generation Globalstar system to have Teledesic like data capabilities! Posted: 9/30/1999 6:38 pm EDT as a reply to: Msg 14054 by esqladyq