Wall Street’s on-again, off-again love affair with Internet stocks seems to
be more based on emotion than metrics–one reason why we created WebDex,
which tracks market cap per user. The good news is that growth at each of
the top Web firms continues while value per user falls somewhat, meaning
that common sense is creeping into the equation.
Said another way, is a Yahoo user worth $115 versus an average of $60 for
the group shown? Yes, brand value counts and market/mindshare do also. But
that’s a lot of expectation built into the firm.
Excite and MSN.com show the biggest jump in users between January and
February. But the market cap or private value doesn’t match the growth,
unlike Yahoo, whose market cap and value per user have grown in sync and
held consistent in the past month.
AOL.com comes on strong in users and we allocate a private market value
(PMV), since it’s not a separate balance sheet item yet, of $1 billion.
Most of that stems from built-in leverage from the AOL brand and eyeball
brigade.
Within 24 months we wouldn’t be surprised if AOL.com becomes AOL itself or
vice versa. The Web wins the platform war. And AOL saves from having to
maintain its own proprietary platform. Wasted dollars there.
Our latest tally:
WEBDEX: Internet User Values
WEBDEX | March 3 | March 11 | March 3 | March 11 | ||||
Web Property | February | January | Percent | Market cap | Market cap | Percent | Value | Value |
Web Brand | Users | Users | change | or est. PMV * | or est. PMV * | change | Per | Per |
(millions) | (millions) | (millions) | (millions) | User | User | |||
Yahoo | 31.3 | 26.7 | 17% | $ 3,087 | $ 3,631 | 18% | $ 115.62 | $ 116.01 |
Netscape.com* | 23.1 | 20.7 | 12% | $ 625 | $ 650 | 4% | $ 30.19 | $ 28.14 |
Microsoft.com* | 17.9 | 15.6 | 15% | $ 1,000 | $ 1,100 | 10% | $ 64.10 | $ 61.45 |
Excite | 16.5 | 12.5 | 32% | $ 777 | $ 814 | 5% | $ 62.18 | $ 49.35 |
Infoseek | 13.7 | 11.6 | 18% | $ 479 | $ 504 | 5% | $ 41.29 | $ 36.76 |
AOL.com* | 14.1 | 11.2 | 26% | $ 1,000 | $ 1,100 | 10% | $ 89.29 | $ 78.01 |
GeoCities* | 12.5 | 10.4 | 20% | $ 225 | $ 250 | 11% | $ 21.63 | $ 20.00 |
MSN.com | 8.3 | 6.3 | 32% | $ 500 | $ 550 | 10% | $ 79.37 | $ 66.27 |
Lycos | 10.2 | 7.8 | 31% | $ 606 | $ 603 | -1% | $ 77.71 | $ 59.11 |
AltaVista* | 7.6 | 6.7 | 13% | $ 250 | $ 250 | 0% | $ 37.31 | $ 32.89 |
TOTAL | 155 | 130 | 20% | $ 8,549 | $ 9,452 | 11% | $ 66.02 | $ 60.90 |
AVERAGE | 16 | 13 | 20% | $ 855 | $ 945 | 11% | $ 66.02 | $ 60.90 |
