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Mobile Devices Drive 16,000 Small-Cap Visits To AGORACOM In August

Posted by AGORACOM at 4:38 PM on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Good afternoon to you all.  From the “I love traffic data” department, I’m happy to provide you with mobile data traffic to AGORACOM for the month of August.  Here is a snapshot of the overall data, followed by my comments:

USAGE HIGHLIGHTS:

  • All comparisons above are to January 2010 – and man is mobile skyrocketing
  • Given the fact August is an even slower month than December for investor traffic, I am pleasantly surprised to see that we received 16,000 visits from mobile devices this month.  That is a 45% increase vs. January of 2010.
  • Mobile devices accounted for just over 3% of all visits to AGORACOM in August.
  • 6.12 pages per visit – an increase of 40.15%tells me that investors have moved beyond basic skimming from their mobile devices and are relying on them as much as their PC’s and laptops.  The entire site average for August was 9.68 pages per visit.
  • Likewise, average time on the site jumped 39.5% to 6mins 33secs.  When you consider the site average for August was 8:22, you have even more evidence that mobile investor access is no longer for hit an run purposes

DEVICE HIGHLIGHTS:

This one is a real shocker.  Despite Apple’s popularity, I would not have expected small-cap investor access via iPhones, iPods and iPads  to surpass that of business intensive Blackberry users. This should be doubly true when you consider the fact we have a significant content partnership with Blackberry.  Apple didn’t surpass, it destroyed Blackberry.

Moreover, I fully expected Android usage (phones carrying the operating system created by Google) to be a distant 3rd this early in the game.  Think again.

Here are the numbers:

  • 1st – Apple accounted for 75% of all mobile visits to AGORACOM in August, broken down as follows:
    • iPhone 8,521;
    • iPad 2,293;
    • iPod 1,500
  • 2nd – Android 14.5%
  • 3rd – Blackberry 6.1%

CONCLUSIONS

I can only conclude from the above noted data that

1.  Our iPhone app launch on September 15th is a well timed step in the right direction.

2.  Even though Blackberry users as a group tend to be a significantly larger proportion of business/market people, Apple users appear to be a significantly larger proportion of retail investors that prefer to access online financial communities such as AGORACOM.

3.  Android – as expected – will be a force to be reckoned with.  Time to find an Android app developer!

Regards,
George


Posted in AGORACOM Mobile, AGORACOM News And Events, AGORACOM Traffic, All Recent Posts, Mobile | 2 Comments »

ChinaSecurities.com Small-Cap Company Feature: Artificial Life Reports $.08 EPS For Quarter, Trading At $1.25

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:30 AM on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

As many of you know, we are very bullish on the long-term future of Chinese small cap and mid cap companies for two reasons:

1] The obvious reason – China is the fastest growing economy on the planet and nothing is going to slow down its ascent over the next 50 years and beyond. Investing in growth companies there just makes too much sense.

2] Great Results and Valuations – Many Small Cap Chinese Companies are listing in the US (OTCBB, NYSE Alternext and NASDAQ) with great financial results. Unlike many dubious US Small Cap Companies, Chinese Companies don’t seem to believe in losing money or failing to execute in a business plan. As such, 7-digit revenues and profits are very common.

From a valuation point of view, many Chinese companies became a victim of their own success in Q4 2008 and Q1 2009. Why? When the world needed to start liquidating, one of the first places they looked were China where most investors had significant gains to sell into. This resulted in the proverbial baby being thrown out with the bathwater and some great valuations.

TODAY’S FEATURED COMPANY

Artificial Life Inc. – OTC.BB:ALIF

Alif

As a leading, full-service provider of mobile broadband 3G technology, mobile participation TV, mobile gaming, content and business applications, Artificial Life provides 2D and 3D multi- and single-player rich-media applications for 3G, 3.5G and 4G network-enabled mobile phones.

On November 10th, the company announced Strong Growth and Earnings for the third quarter of 2009.

Check out the full details below!

Read Full Press Release

China Stocks TV Segment

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 were $8,723,481 – a 32% increase Year over Year
  • Net Income was $3.875 million, equating into $.08 EPS.

MY COMMENTS:

Strong top-line growth in a space that is going to grow for years and years to come – mobile gaming.  I love the fact the company derives revenue from downloads, subscriptions, licensing and bulk resellers.  Most importantly, you can’t ignore the fact ALIF reported 8 cents/share in earnings for the Q.  Extrapolate that out and the company is on an annual run rate of $ .32 EPS – great valuation considering the company is trading around $1.25.

As always, this is my view in a snapshot. It is intended to give you a running start into your research. Now, you have to do your own due diligence to make sure the valuation is not impaired by other factors including balance sheet items, lawsuits or any other negative events.

If you have any comments, I’d love to see them below.

YOUR RESEARCH STARTING POINTS FOR CHINESE SMALL CAP AND MID CAP COMPANIES

We’ve provided investors with two great starting points to research great Chinese small cap and mid cap companies.

1. ChinaSecurities.com – ChinaSecurities.com tracks 250 of the best small cap and mid cap companies trading on North American exchanges. It provides you with the best of the best in two ways. First, the front page lists the best news of the day coming out of the space. It does so by giving you a text view of the best press releases by industry and via Chinese Stocks TV, a 5-minute broadcast every morning just after the open. Chinse Stocks TV is archived, so you can catch up on shows you missed.

Second, if you want to research each of the 250 companies to find candidates for your portfolio, it has a very intuitive directory that lets you quickly review each company on the master list, or parse it out by industry and exchange if you have a particular sector of interest. Cool stuff.

2. Right here on AGORACOM, you can refer to our China category for other featured Chinese Small-Cap Companies. As always, we will disclose any IR relationship with any public company. Given the sheer number of great Chinese Small-Cap Companies out there, you can expect us NOT to have an IR relationship with most of these companies.

Regards,
George

Posted in China, Mobile, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | Comments Off on ChinaSecurities.com Small-Cap Company Feature: Artificial Life Reports $.08 EPS For Quarter, Trading At $1.25

Small Cap CEO Lesson: Is Mobile Important To Investor Relations? Yes, US Mobile Internet Users To Reach 134 Million

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:43 AM on Thursday, June 18th, 2009

The idea that investors will remain tethered to their desktops and laptops is long gone.  Accessing e-mail from your mobile is already status quo and thanks to smartphones such as the iPhone, Blackberry line and others, people are are significantly increasing their mobile surfing.

More than just lip service, I posted a story on April 13th titled Mobile Internet trading and Research Skyrockets 188%.

Today, I provide you with further evidence.  According to eMarketer, the number of people surfing the web from their mobiles is going to skyrocket.  The graph to the left shows us that 59.5 million Americans were mobile surfing at the end of 2008, 73.7 million will be mobile surfing by the end of 2009 and 134.3 million will be doing so by the end of 2013.  We don’t have numbers for Canada but I think it is safe to use the same percentages.  Europe and Asia on the other hand are probably substantially higher due to mobile penetration and dependence in those regions.

UPDATE: Phil Barrett, vice-president of digital and mobile at B Street, noted that mobile devices have a 72% penetration rate in Canada and about four million Canadians are accessing the mobile web through their mobile device. (marketingmag.ca)

CONCLUSION

A mobile investor relations strategy is a must.  Having a website accessible via mobile phones is not enough.  Sending out IR communications via e-mail is not enough.  Why?  You aren’t reaching anybody new, you’re simply preaching to the converted.

You have to find a way to publish information into the web stream (if you don’t know what this means, stay tuned for webcasts of my presentations at the Cambridge and Reverse Merger Conferences).  Getting your information into the stream makes your IR communications more easily accessible to mobile investors.  There are a number of ways to accomplish it.  If you are an AGORACOM client, you will have a free mobile strategy by September.  If you are not an AGORACOM client, then your options are as follows:

  1. Build an application for iPhone and Blackberry that targets small-cap investors and your industry. A lot of expense for just one company’s IR stream.
  2. Start blogging.  Blogs are search engine friendly and allow you to tag your information for targeting mobile investors (and all investors) that are specifically interested in your industry.  Blogs also allow you to distribute your content via RSS Feeds.
  3. Start Twittering.  Twitter is extremely search engine friendly, including its own search engine that mobile investors (and all investors) are using to discover investments related to their specific fields of interest.

Admittedly, these are not easy things to accomplish for 95% of  small-cap companies.  You can bring in a local consultant – but make sure they understand both your business and the stock market.  Most tech geeks don’t understand both and could end up creating something that does not fit your goals.

On the other hand, you can contact us and have a turnkey online and mobile investor relations strategy created for you.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Mobile, Online Investor Relations, Small-Cap CEO Lessons, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 1 Comment »

Small Cap CEO Lesson: Mobile Internet Trading And Research Skyrockets 188%

Posted by AGORACOM at 11:37 AM on Monday, April 13th, 2009

If you are a CEO of a small-cap or mid-cap company and have been considering a mobile strategy, then you absolutely have to see the blow away numbers in a comScore report that came out in March. If you’re not considering a mobile strategy, then you need to see these numbers even more.

For our part, AGORACOM has been planning its mobile strategy for a while now and you can expect to see significant announcements shortly, as well as, some commentary below.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE REPORT

  • The number of people using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009.
  • Among the audience of 63.2 million people who accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, 22.4 million (35%) did so daily; more than double the size of the audience last year.

PERTINENT FINANCIAL DATA AND QUOTE

  • The number of daily users trading stock or accessing financial accounts jumped 188% from 1.135 million users to 3.274 million users.

“Over the course of the past year, we have seen use of mobile Internet evolve
from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people’s lives.”This underscores
the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more reliant
on their mobile devices to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information.”

Mark Donovan, senior vice president, mobile, comScore.

HOW DO YOU GET MOBILE?

There are several ways to get mobile from creating an app for iPhone and Blackberry, to partnering with someone like Viigo to get your RSS feeds into the mainstream.  However, this is tough for many small cap and midcap public companies for two reasons.

First, they rarely have the resources or tech knowhow to execute such strategies.

Second, even if you have the resources and knowhow, 99% lack the critical mass to make it successful.  In other words, once your mobile strategy is engaged by a few hundred shareholders and a few board members using it, then what?  How do you scale to reach the millions and millions of investors out there?

THE SOLUTION

In order to make a mobile strategy effective, small cap and mid cap stocks need to come together under one umbrella in order to create an offering that provides plenty of fresh news and information for consumption by investors.  As 1 company, you’re not going to get a mobile investor to keep returning to your mobile site/app.  As 100, 200, 300 companies, an investor is far more likelier to keep returning for morsels of valuable news and information.

Here comes the shameless promotion.  AGORACOM is already one of only  13 financial content providers to every Blackberry device on the planet.  However, we are now looking to replicate our online success into the mobile space.  It’s coming fast and it is coming soon.  Most importantly, it will be multi-faceted and include:

  • Multiple apps
  • Multiple devices

If you want to know more, you know where to find us.  Hope this report and my subsequent comments have been helpful.

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM Mobile, All Recent Posts, Mobile, Small-Cap CEO Lessons | 2 Comments »