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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wolfgang who wrote (3383)	12/10/1998 5:13:00 PM
From: Moose	Respond to of 29970

I don't agree that ATHM is easily duplicated. It may be easy to make a cable modem(?), but the underlying value is that TCI owns 40% of ATHM. This has provided huge leverage in creating relationships and providing a potential market. To prove the point, here's a quote: biz.yahoo.com <<At Home, partly-owned by TCI, now has 18 cable partnerships, representing 60 million homes, out of 106 million total homes with cable in the U.S. and Canada and has over 210,000 subscribers.>> What creates the barrier to entry is who owns the cable and who owns ATHM. ATHM is not without competition but is clearly in the lead: (same article) <<Last December, Time Warner's Road Runner, another cable modem-based service, announced plans to merge with MediaOne's MediaOne Express cable modem service, creating a combined service with 140,000 subscribers.>> I think what's moving this stock is it's subscriber-base growth. In June, they had 147k, in September they had 210k and I think it is currently estimated to be near 400k by year's end. That's growth baby! At this rate, they should ramp past MSPG by Q1. So, short term, ATHM is a winner, as is MSPG, ELNK, AOL, etc. Long term looks great as well, though I wouldn't say they [cable modem ISP's] will be "the winners". I've decided that ADSL and cable modem's will both be winners, with both being replaced by wireless technology in roughly 10 years (how else are we going to reliably use our AutoPCs?). In the mean time, cable is simply cheaper and may get a lead on ADSL simply due to that. In a few years when the telco's see their market eroding, they will either buy cable companies (T/TCI), or go away - letting the cable company handle all data types for us: cable tv, inet, phone. -Moose