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R-100 Index Past Results & Analysis Redux Global ICT 100 Index: ‘Wireless Tracker’ launched
R-100 Index Past Results & Analysis Redux Global ICT 100 Index: ‘Wireless Tracker’ launched 
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| Redux Global ICT 100 Index: ‘Wireless Tracker’ launched |
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| Friday, 08 October 2004 | |
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08 October, 2004: Wireless
operators are under fire from regulators on pricing; still they laugh
all the way to the bourse, as our new R-100 ‘Wireless Tracker’ makes
clear… TelecomRedux today launches the R-100 ‘Wireless Tracker’, a second sub-Index of the main Redux Global ICT 100 Index. The first results for the new Tracker, comprising the world’s ten leading mobile-centric operators (click here for a list), shows a gain of 1.1% in the month to 01 October, 2004. This also adds up to a gain of just under 2.9% in the three months since tracking began on 02 July, 2004. Among its components, only one (DoCoMo of Japan) declined last month although three others (TIM of Italy, Telefónica Moviles of Spain and Nextel of the US) are down over a three-month period. Mobilus operandi Drawing up a ‘Top Ten’ of pure-play global mobile operators is difficult if not impossible. On the one hand, many major global mobile players are safely embedded within traditional operators such as Deutsche Telekom (home to T-Mobile) and France Telecom (Orange). Under duress, a few telcos have spat out their wireless arms as separate entities (think BT and mmO2 or NTT and DoCoMo or Sprint and Sprint FON). Others, like Telefónica Moviles and Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), are half spat out while remaining half gurgitated by the parent. To their chagrin, telcos find that spinning off mobile arms tends to create companies worth more than the erstwhile parent: stalled mobile IPOs and buybacks are testament to this. In the US, AT&T has watched as its wireless arm, spun off in 2001, is on the verge of being acquired by Cingluar Wireless, itself a joint-venture subsidiary of telcos SBC and Verizon, for a cool US$41bn. AT&T Wireless’s former parent, meanwhile, has a market cap of roughly 25% of that amount. In this case, it’s a question of ‘who let the cash cow out?’. Moo, moo... it’s you. The ten companies in the newly-launched R-100 ‘Wireless Tracker’ are mostly close to being pure-play mobile stocks. Some would fail that test, notably Hutchison Whampoa (HW), which is a far-reaching conglomerate in which cellular forays are but one – albeit the most risky and the most exciting – of its activities. Having said that, HW is currently experiencing the reverse of AT&T’s predicament. It’s current IPO of 25% in HTIL, which groups together its mobile operations in eight countries, is now expected to bring in just US$900m, compared to in excess of US$2bn as was once envisaged. Weak signal?Companies like Vodafone and DoCoMo are among the world’s largest in any sector and certainly are dominant in the cellular world. China Mobile now lays claim to the single biggest subscriber base on Earth. Nextel has carved out a huge niche in ‘push-to-talk’ wireless; TIM pioneered many of the mass market techniques which now define the mobile market. As a group, the ten companies in the R-100 ‘Wireless Tracker’ boasted a market cap of US$415bn on 02 July, 2004; on 01 October, 2004, this had risen to US$427.3bn. That’s a net gain of US$22bn for three months, despite the hardship created by analysts and regulators chipping away at their long-term prospects and their cashflow bases. If the sub-Index had been set at 100 as of 02 July, it would have reached 102.83 as of 01 October, despite dipping to 98.16 on 30 July, 2004. For a full report on the main Redux Global ICT 100 Index this month, click here. Jim Chalmers |
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