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Technology Stocks : Vodafone-Airtouch (NYSE: VOD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (2527)	2/14/2000 9:20:00 PM
From: MrGreenJeans	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3175

worldlyinvestor.com Sector of the Day Believe the Hype about Vodafone AirTouch By Emily Burg, Correspondent Vodafone's share-price dip is a small bump in the road on its way to wireless Web domination. ``The word is Vodafone.' That's the corporate slogan for the world's biggest wireless company and the UK's biggest company, Vodafone AirTouch (NYSE:VOD - news). And they're not kidding. The company applies the same determination it showed in its hostile $181 billion purchase of Mannesmann (OTC:MNNSY - news) to everything else it attempts. From consolidating its pan-European wireless presence to its joint venture with Bell Atlantic (NYSE:BEL - news) in the US to its Internet portal plans, Vodafone is hard at work to make sure that competitors and shareholders realize it's a serious force to contend with. Analysts already love the stock and think it's a core wireless holding. So why is this widely loved company's share price nothing to brag about? Short-Term Slip? The company's share price has been lagging lately on concerns about getting approval for the Mannesmann acquisition from the European Union's anti-competition division, analysts say. This sort of speculation is not uncommon for major mergers. Vodafone's share price is down from an early February 52-week high of $63 to around $53. But if the deal goes through without any hassles -- which is widely anticipated -- analysts think Vodafone stock could quickly appreciate. ``Vodafone is totally undervalued now,' emphasizes Dennis Gross, analyst with Williams De Broe. ``But if the EU clears the deal within four weeks, you can expect to see the share price race ahead very nicely.' Vodafone.com Now that it's the world's largest wireless company, Vodafone has set its sights on the Internet. Wireless Internet access in Europe is as hot as business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce is in the US; analysts expect Vodafone to build out its wireless Web strategy in a hurry. ``The company that will emerge in the next three years as the most talked about and most powerful Internet company in Europe is Vodafone AirTouch,' says Derek Brown, European Internet analyst with Robertson Stephens. Vodafone's first step towards becoming a serious wireless Internet player is its plans to develop a European portal. It has paired up with French conglomerate Vivendi (OTC:VVDIY - news) to create a portal that is capable of seamlessly interfacing with Vodafone's global Internet platform. Together, the companies will have access to 70 million subscribers. Attractive Couple Analysts like the marriage. Salomon Smith Barney analysts raised their price target on Vodafone's to $72 on the news, calling it an offensive move towards exploiting wireless Internet opportunities. The portal, which analysts expect to be running in about six months, will provide customers with access to Web-based communications services, e-commerce and entertainment across all Internet platforms, including TV, PCs, mobile handsets and personal digital assistants (PDAs). ``We think the content is going to be extremely compelling for the users in terms of being able to go in and sign up for the various wireless services they want. As soon as Vodafone has its portal up and running, they're going to be a very powerful force in the Internet,' says Brown. Vodafone's Internet strategy will likely focus on content aggregation, which creates a host of partnership possibilities for the company, says Robert Mocatta, analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston. In the coming months, Vodafone could strike deals with anyone from News Corp (NYSE:NWS - news) to Reuters (Nasdaq:RTRSY - news), the analyst says. No Stone Unturned But analysts don't think Vodafone's wireless Internet strategy will come at the expense of its methodical approach to growth. The company excels at outlining clear goals and making acquisitions or forging partnerships in order to fill in the missing pieces of its growing wireless empire. So, while Vodafone already dominates the European wireless market, there's still room for expansion, especially into the Spanish and French markets. There's also the US to consider. The AirTouch acquisition and its joint venture with Bell Atlantic and GTE (NYSE:GTE - news) have given Vodafone an American business valued at $70 billion with 22 million wireless subscribers and 3.5 million paging subscribers. Nonetheless, the US has been less of a priority to Vodafone than Europe - something that may change in the future. ``No doubt Vodafone is going to keep growing and acquiring,' says Mocatta. ``But you have to wonder what's going to happen in the US.'