Ebt Mobile China Share Discussion Threads

[igoe104] 17/5/2007 13:35

NEW phones coming to the chinese market.



This should be good for trade.

[igoe104] 17/5/2007 10:33

In my eyes its just a matter of time before this rockets. the growth in chinese mobile phones is going to be massive. lots of new phones coming out soon, i,m expecting at least a 10 bagger over a five year period.

The mobile phone business in Asia is booming especially in China,

[divinausa1] 17/5/2007 10:26

Not sure why its dropped so far back the share price back to march 2006 levels. Neraly all time low not counting the blip down in dec 2006

[silverthread] 17/5/2007 10:09

Useful and interesting posts, igoe. Thanks for posting them.

Certainly confirms China (& India) as high growth areas for mobile phones. Surely with EBT working so closely with China Mobile, it must parallel the projected rise in that company.

[igoe104] 17/5/2007 09:52

chinese mobile market is growing fast.

[igoe104] 17/5/2007 09:21

THIS is also interesting sector news.

[igoe104] 17/5/2007 09:10

I see this being a 10 bagger over a five year period. there is going to be over 1 billion chinese mobile users over the next few years. ebt are getting them-self in a good position to benefit from this sudden growth.

this is worth a read.

Economic growth in China should lead to increasing affordability of mobile services, strong price elasticity and stable Arpu," said Wang, referring to average revenue per user (Arpu), a key industry measure. "In our view, the share price should capture not only upside in disposable income levels, but also a structural change in household expenditure towards telecoms."

[igoe104] 17/5/2007 08:59

JUST IN FOR 69254, SHARES. GREAT VALUE AT THIS LEVEL.

[sheeneqa] 17/5/2007 08:43

Looks like the market suspects your stab is accurate cordwainer..

[silverthread] 16/5/2007 17:04

The graph pattern is spooky ... we're following an almost identical pattern from 12 months ago - despite the fundamentals being rather different and EBT's growth strategy having progressed a great deal during the past year.

Let's hope we break the pattern very soon.

[beaufort1] 16/5/2007 15:13

You're not wrong Azalea - particularly with the share price at these levels.

[azalea] 16/5/2007 14:51

I agree Audley are no mugs. I am looking to see where I can rustle up some cash to add.

[beaufort1] 16/5/2007 14:27

Yesterday Audley bought almost 3m shares at 26p - good deal!
I have just topped up myself , but not on such a large scale. They have now overtaken Allianz as the second largest shareholder after James reiman

[beaufort1] 16/5/2007 13:46

These Audley guys are smart - they have been quietly accumulating lots of shares while the share price has been plummeting. They now have 17.5% and counting. Will they go up to 25% plus as they have with Cambrian Mining (CBM)? NB Audley are a shareholder activist/private equity fund (minimum stake $5m if anyone wants to climb on board!

Don't sell your EBT shares guys and gals!

[silverthread] 16/5/2007 13:21

Today's RNS seems to indicate that Audley Capital Management has been buying EBT shares recently, increasing its holding from 31,625,000 (15.44%) to 37,000,000 (17.53%) by my reckoning.

[silverthread] 16/5/2007 13:19

Cordwainer,
We are in danger of criticising EBT's strategy without a thorough understanding of the Chinese market. For sure EBT knows more about its market than we do.

As a general principle, I think it a good strategy to sustain margins rather than chase market share through price cutting. Incidentally, this is not just EBT's strategy, but also the strategy of China Mobile which has franchised a chunk of its sales outlets to EBT. Hence, in these instances, margin protection is not at EBT's sole discretion.

Remember the recent RNS was only referring to sales during the Labour Holiday Period - reasons given for the 'below par' sales performance were lack of new models, and a trend amogst the Chinese to travel rather than shop during the holiday period. I am prepared to accept these as valid reasons.

Incidentally, during the Chinese New Year holiday period back in February sales were healthy:

"Significant Increase in Chinese 'New Year' Sales
EBT announces a significant increase in sales during the important Spring
Festival Season.

Sales (excluding VAT) during the holiday period were 52% ahead of those in the
2006 holiday period, and same store sales were up by approximately 9%."

Zhang Ge, CEO of EBT Mobile, said, 'The rapid growth of our network has led to
significant increase in sales revenue. We are pleased with our sales performance
in this Spring Festival compared to that of 2006, especially taking into account
that 31 of our new stores opened as recently as January or early February 2007
and China Mobile does not use subsidies or promotions during the holiday period
to attract additional customers to its stores.'

'The growth in same store sales shows the quality of the locations of those
stores opened in 2006 as well as the ongoing benefits of our commitment to
continuous improvement in training and product purchasing.'"

So maybe overall the sales situation is not that bad, and the Labour Holiday period just a minor glitch. Afterall, the company did state in the recent RNS that:

"We remain confident of delivering our expected performance for the remainder of 2007"

[britishbear] 16/5/2007 12:48

The sheer size of EBT means that they have a preferential deals with all suppliers to get handsets at a lower price than other sellers.

They are attempting to do a carphone warehouse for China.

Why to Carphone do well in the UK?

There is a market for quality service from a brand you can trust.

[codroy] 16/5/2007 07:39

i just got rid of this heap (-15%) before i lose anymore, nxs looks a better bet at the moment

[igoe104] 15/5/2007 16:05

This is also worth a read.

[silverthread] 15/5/2007 16:00

Igoe, Good piece confirming the strength and size of the Chinese mobile market.

With that in mind, it's disappointing that EBT had such a comparatively low increase in sales over the recent holiday period. Is the strategy for going for high margins and top end of the market right?

Questions in my mind are:
1) do the recent sales stats only apply to the holiday period? With peeps travelling rather than shopping? And will sales for the whole year look much better?
2) Are margins really holding up well enough to allow the company to come in in line with expectations?
3) Has management the capability and desire to focus on growing revenue and profits from its many current stores.
4) When will the new models come on stream to give a boost to sales?

I wonder if the large sales at the end of the day amounted to an institution off-loading?

Still believe this is a good bet in the medium term.

[igoe104] 15/5/2007 15:08

WORTH A READ.

[igoe104] 15/5/2007 14:53

TWO big sells, have just come in. it will be interesting to see if a buyer takes it out.

14:07 26.00p 450,000 £117,000 Sell O
14:07 26.00p 450,000 £117,000 Sell O