what the f..., page-21

Hi extralite,

Hutchison is not a strictly fair comparison.

They have:
1)
>$50 BILLION available in cash and near cash equivalents;
2)
are developing a global 3G /UMTS business, with footprints covering Australia, Hong Kong, India, Sweden, UK, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Israel;
3)
are linked with Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, Investor AB (Ericsson's major shareholder), and others (including NEC, Motorola, Siemens, etc);
4)
last week announced the spin-off of their wireless assets in Hong Kong;
5)
sold out of Orange in the UK (a GSM business) at the height of mobile mania, and out of VisionStream in the USA , again at the market highs and have re-invested the proceeds into supporting the development of the 3G business;
6)
have developed the Australian business such that ORANGE has 325,000 customers, $222M in mobile revenue and $252M in total revenue, EBITDA of $21.6M, ARPU values of $55 per month (see page 12 of their 2003 Annual report), and 135 minutes of use (74% being mobility minutes, vs 46% in 2002); and
7)
have developed their "3" business, albeit as a start-up, loss maker, but with 87,000 customers to December 2003, and 100,000 since April 2003, $88M in mobile revenue since May 2003, an EBITDA loss of $306M (and a current workforce >1,100), and ARPU values of $80 per month and 300 minutes of use.