Internet Update
Dateline: 07/19/99
Vancouver based NetNation is one of the top web hosting companies, rated among the top ten in the world by web host evaluators HostIndex and Tophosts. The industry is expected to grow from a billion dollars this year to $15 billion in three years according to analysts.
With client base of 6500 in 91 countries and growth of 3000% in the last two years, Net Nation is on the move. The company only went public two months ago and is relatively unknown among investors. But analysts like the Inner Circle's Bill Ridley have been actively promoting the stock recently.
In a special report of July 6th, Ridley says that the really big news for NetNation is that it is among the select few companies recently designated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to register Internet domain names, a function exclusively handled by Network Solutions previously. NetNation has been working in partnership with them for some time, registering over 18,000 names on behalf of NetNation clients. Although entitled to take on this role as of July 9th, the company says it won't actually start registering names until October 1st as the transition process gets put into place.
Revenue growth has averaged over 25% a quarter for the last nine quarters. 1998 revenues increased to $1,643,757 from $471,968 in 1997, but the company is not yet profitable. Loss for 1998 was around $160,000.
Ridley compares NetNation to U.S. webhosting giants Mindspring and Verio, neither of which is rated as highly by HostIndex. Both trade at far higher market caps than NetNation and Ridley says the company represents a superb bottom fishing opportunity. "It makes sense," he says, "that the highly rated NetNation should have a market cap at least as high as its peers".
Another newsletter writer, Kevin Barker of the IT Investor also recommends the stock in a report dated June 17th. He says NetNation is positioning itself as the "Starbucks of the Web hosting world". He also notes that NetNation uses Linux which he expects to be the preferred operating system for e-commerce in the future.
Despite the promotion by Ridley and Barker, the stock has not done much since it was launched in April. It closed on its first day of trading at $4.50 and on Friday at $4.66. An opportunity? You be the judge!
NetNation News Reports - Recent news releases from NetNation collected at Stockscape's Canadian News Headquarters.
NetNation Snapshot - A Platinum Snapshot of NetNation from Stockhouse.com.
Interview With David Talmor, NetNation CEO - June 17, 1999 interview from Stockhouse.com.
NetNation Profile - Detailed report from Tradersource. Please note that Tradersource was compensated by NetNation for preparing the report.
NetNation Profile - Another profile, this one from Stockquest. Again, Stockquest was paid a fee by the company to prepare this report but it contains a lot of valuable information none the less.