Vonage finally filed the paperwork for its long-rumored IPO. Stellar growth, but it’s clear from a look at the income statement that the company faces tremendous competition and, to date at least, has responded by ratcheting up its marketing budget. For the nine months ending 9/30/2005:
- The company generated $174 million in revenue.
- Revenue notwithstanding, Vonage had a net loss of $189 million.
- Marketing expenses were $176 million.
- About 1 million subscriber lines, with about 2% monthly churn.
In fact, according to TNS Media Intelligence, in May, 2005 (and probably in other months, also) Vonage was the largest single advertiser on the internet, spending more than $30 million in that month alone (via ClickZ).
It’s especially interesting that the company is now disclosing that a new CEO, Michael Snyder, will be installed at the end of February. Current CEO Jeff Citron will become Chief Strategist.
Read the entire S-1 here.
For what it’s worth, Andy Abramson predicted most of this a few weeks ago here.
It’s like the lit dynamite stick. Only way to keep it from exploding is blow on it - with new subscribers and marketing. I think that’s how they are valued - like a wireless carrier. On another note, there’s something satisfying reading S-1s. Nothing like full disclosure.
Left by Mark Milligan on February 9th, 2006