Southern Cross Equities analyst, Daniel Blair in a note to clients said: "We continue to believe that iiNet is the standout ISP due to [its] market leading customer proposition – both its product offering and customer service [and because] iiNet is well run with limited operational risk."
Blair added "iiNet offers a compelling investment and represents better value than its peers." He expects it to start generating significant free cash-flow from FY10 and he is forecasting a 24 percent increase in FY09 net profit after tax. (iiNet said in June that it would deliver NPAT in excess of $25m.)
Blair is hoping that, at the results announcement, iiNet will report on progress of its planned IPTV service and talk up 'BoB' its new home gateway devices developed in conjunction with Belkin and announced, with few details, earlier this week.
iiNet described BoB as "more than just a modem/router; he has an optional phone handset and connects multiple devices simultaneously, including home wireless and wired computers, entertainment platforms like Xbox and USB storage devices. He's even a charger for devices like iPods and Blackberrys."
Plans for the IPTV service, dubbed iiTV, were revealed by CEO, Michael Malone at the company's AGM on 20 November 2008, and reported by iTWire at the time . He said testing was already underway with a commercial launch scheduled for 2009 and that the service package would include tuners to receive free to air programming, an electronic programme guide, PVR, on demand movies and TV shows and interactive features: all of which would be delivered free of download quotas.
CTO Greg Bader told iTWire in April that launch of the services was still awaiting board approval. "It is a fairly big development cycle, but we are currently working towards having something out by Christmas" he said.
IIN Price at posting:
$1.85 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
