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Technology Stocks : Altaba Inc. (formerly Yahoo) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TheBigB who wrote (8042)	3/9/1998 12:55:00 AM
From: Bill Harmond	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27307

Don't get me wrong. I own plenty AOL, but I don't understand your saying that AOL is "50% of the Internet." There are currently 60 million WWW users, less than 20 million AOL users (including multiple users per account), and around 30 million Yahoo users. I don't know how much time AOL members spend on AOL, but they say they have something like 500 million page views daily, vs Yahoo's 65 million. AOL got a big pop in page views when they went to unlimited use last year, but now I'd expect their proprietary content page views to grow at the same or a little slower rate compared to membership growth (because the Internet is offering a greater explosion of content and services). Yahoo's page views are growing around 25% quarterly. AOL's users can pass thru AOL and get on the Web outside AOL's control (and ability to sell). AOL isn't a sandbox any longer. Yahoo's saleable page views are growing faster than Internet usage, and AOL's are growing slower from a larger base. If I remember, only 1.6 million AOL members are outside the US. Yahoo is truly global and has far better international prospects than AOL. Yahoo France, for example is the number-one site in France. AOL has the deal with Bertelsmann, but Yahoo operates in something like 9 languages already. Bertelsmann is JV'ing with Lycos for localized international WWW sites. If you're an overseas native, what's the attraction of America Online, though I have to admit I'm weak on AOL's overseas presense. AOL is laying off (net on a company-wide basis), Yahoo is hiring. AOL just closed down their Digital City office in San Diego except for a couple ad sales people. They plan to publish Digital City San Diego out of LA. Sounds like localized content is too expensive for their blood. Yahoo is growing revenues faster than AOL. AOL is growing membership around 35% annually. Perhaps you separate AOL into two businesses mentally. The "ISP" with something considerably less than $100 million in revenues net of payments for WorldCom, subscriber acquisition, and service growing 35%; and the commerce AOL with about the same revenues growing at 90-100%...then combine the values. Yahoo doesn't look so expensive when compared to that dual model. Yahoo is 1/7th as big as AOL growing revenues more than twice as fast with better global growth prospects and no debt. Pricing Yahoo at a third of AOL seems reasonable to me. Hocus-Pocus, Valuocus!