ENG - Engin Limited

..........and a chart..

Forum

I have heard that the figures for end march and april


end march 29000 paying subscribers
end april 34400 paying subscribers


this is a reliable source (or at least has been in the past few months)
but it could represent bullsh*t


ij

IF these figures are accurate, this would indicate 5000 new subscribers in March (ENG's investor presentation had paying subscriber numbers at 24,000 at end Feb) and 5400 for April.

Notably, if these figures are accurate, they indicate sign up rate of new subscribers is increasing (marginally).

More importantly, 30,000 paying subscribers was seen as the required number to reach breakeven.

Furthermore, one stated objective was to reach 40,000 subscriber lines before July 06. If current new subscriber rates are maintained, this should take place, demonstrating Engin managements commitment and ability to set and achieve realistic goals.

What would be interesting to see is something from Engin management that presents subscriber numbers (paying vs. non-paying), network minutes and call types (fixed price vs. variable) to see where the best revenue streams are. (something similar to figures presented in the CEO's presentation at last AGM - see http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistic...ng&timeFrameSearchType=D&releasedDuringCode=6)

Available also from the ASX site, the release entitled "engin Results 2005 and Business Outlook" states that Engin receive around $45 per paying subscriber per month.

Without access to the current financials and any increase/decreases in operating costs, marketing expenditure etc.....well....if the subscriber figures are accurate then Engin should now be generating circa $100,000-200,000 per month profit.

I'd like to verify the figures and hope that Engin management are close to making a formal market announcement to confirm that the breakeven milestone has not only been reached, but surpassed.

ijudge and crazyadventures

That is the best thing I have heard all day!
Brilliant.

This just reaffirms how well they are doing, and that our investment is going to rocket soon.

I truly believe once they announce this, and or the breakeven details that they will take the next step in their sp development which will be moving towards 50-70c and onto $1

By doing the numbers it is clear that the sign up rate is increasing extremely well, and that if the same rate continues that they will be sitting on 100,000 customers around Feb next year (not that far off)

And yes, the competition is picking up, but remember, a lot of their new business is word of mouth and referrals. With 33,000 customers now, that is a lot of potential for referral sign ups.

Do you know what the first thing I did was when I signed up and started calling friends and family - I said, hey how cool is this - I am using voip with a company called Engin, it's like 10c a call anywhere - give it a go.

At least 6 different friends/families households now use Engin cos of my referrals alone...

Not wanting to jump the gun, but, this would mean that they would be revalued at many stages along the way to this, and this will of course mean a tidy increase in return for the loyal shareholders who have believed in it since it's modest beginnings last year.

A great achievement for such a small aussie company last year, and can't wait to see it all unfold.

Thanks for the chart too Ann, nice to have your crystal ball charting expertise on this one.

It seems to be entering it's next stage it seems. Hopefully of course

guys

from april 2005 the predicted breakeven point was 30000 paying subs
but from more recent releases they talk about breakeven "early in the new financial year", which to me indicates more like 40,000 paying subs

according to the figures i quoted earlier (if maintained)
this should happen (ie 40000), in the june month this year (ie a little before end of this financial year)
ie, things would be ahead of schedule from the march 2006 release

anyhow

i believe there was reference to a board meeting happening this friday, and perhaps we will see some info from that

i was happy with the figures, but i must say i can not confirm them to be 100% correct, but i do trust the guy who told me


ij

Yep, the board meeting is this friday - I spoke to one of the directors during the week.

Hopefully something will come from the meeting, ann wise.

Anyone have any suggestions on the share price movement today?

Nice little run, must be some good news coming - lets hope

If there's a board meeting this week and a member of this forum who knows a director - can you get a message to them please?

I'd like an update on the Broadband over Power Lines trial that Aurora are running in Australia and what uptake of Engin they've had as a result of this initiative.

This would be of interest - as if this trial is successful, we could see a major errosion of Telstra's foothold on ADSL/broadband, which is required to underpin VoIP.

Imagine the total cost saving if you had power, broadband and voice (VoIP) in one bundled service offerring !!!

There's been little feedback from Engin on the trial and I for one am keen to get an update.

crazyadventures said:

There's been little feedback from Engin on the trial and I for one am keen to get an update.

Click to expand...

I agree with you crazy adventures....This information is very hard to come across. The trial was in Tasmania, and any information I can find on it (which is very hard to come across) has been very positive. I believe this trial is of imperative importance for Engin.

To answer your question Mick....

Anyone have any suggestions on the share price movement today?

History with this SP shows a wiff of news will push the sp north. And I expect that there is some very positive news coming.

The expected breakeven in June seemed to be a very long way away .... and now we're almost here. IF, and I know it is an IF, they are at breakeven stage then this is certainly indicative that ENG is certainly the market leader in VoIP and IMO these prices will be a thing of the past.....so I guess I'm not the only one thinking that and trying to buy in pre 50c!

I'm not sure if you will get much information about the BPL trials until it is publically released.

However the trial does have a website :
http://www.tastel.com.au/bpl/index.html

It looks like trial participants get the service without any monthly fee.

"The trial will be conducted for up to 12 months after which a full-scale rollout will offer one of the best deals for broadband over powerlines in Australia. In the event that services are not continued, customers will be transitioned out of the service at no cost. " - So all indications so far is there will be a full scale rollout.

What I do find of interest is the VoIP Pricing. Pricing seems to be significant more that Engin's normal rates. They even charge for TasTel BPL to TasTel BPL calls which on the Engin network are free. I'm not sure if there is a monthly fee for VoIP, but if there isn't then that could be why the prices are higher.

It is good to see some type of bundling. If you have a look at other similar deals such as the Unwired (Wireless Broadband)/Freshtel agreement, Unwired simply puts a link on their website saying you can get VoIP services from Freshtel. There is no real incentive to sign up with Freshtel, and as many Unwired customers have, they have gone with other providers such as Engin.

The bundling in TasTel example helps give some incentive to use Engin over any other provider. After all, once you have broadband access, you can choose any VoIP provider - you are not locked into just Engin. Some network providers will offer QoS (Quality of Service) to their agreed VoIP carrier, but generally if you have a good network, it does mater. Most of the Internet today has no QoS and it hasn't effected Engin's current customers.

One possible risk I see is TasTel is a partnership between Aurora Energy and AAPT. I hope they are happy with Engin, because you do wonder what would happen if AAPT introduced their own VoIP service.

Whilst old news, the following might be of interest to some who want to know what Engin are doing in the small to medium business market: -

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/commun...minnow_goes_VoIP/0,2000061791,39236978,00.htm

Also, the Engin CEO is one of the presenters at an upcoming VoIP seminar. Good to see participation in these kind of events!

http://www.acevents.com.au/voip2006/index.html#about

Hi all

I just emailed the address on the Tas trial site, asking if they are happy with the engin service, and how it was going.
Will share any feedback I get.

On asking Engin, am happy to call them tomorrow.

I don't know the guy, when I have a question I just jump on the phone and ring them.

They are very approachable.

Will let you know if I find anything out.

So that is what Ikka Tales looks like....
It is good they present at conferences - they have been very good at doing that actually, he has spoken at quite a few of these now I think

Re: ENG - Engin Limited - Tassie update

Hi all

I came across this on another forum tonight, courtesy of another Engin holder. I thought you may be happy to recieve this.
I quote:

I emailed the TasTel people yesterday and asked how the engin trial was going, and they were kind enough to respond to me in really good time.

Dear .....
We have had a number of customers reporting good, reliable phone service.

We are looking at around 6-12 months for the BPL trial to be over and the product to be available state wide within Tasmania.

TasTel BPL Customer Service
GPO Box 1799 HOBART Tasmania 7001
Telesales - 1300 765 275
Service and general enquiries - 1300 787 275
Webpage: - http://www.tastel.com.au/bpl

------------

Not bad? Sure, short and sweet, but good to see the trial is going well, and they are moving forward with rolling out in 6-12 months, that's right, with ENGIN!!!

Imagine how many new customers "could" come online in Tasmania, all with Engin once this takes off!!!!

Do the numbers I say...

The population in Tassie is currently almost 500,000

If they only capture 10%, that is a potential influx of up to 50,0000 new customers - possibly in 6 months, maybe a few more.

If it goes crazy, well, I think we all know what could happen.
And why wouldn't it, you have power points in your house, you can get broadband on it, and hey, you can get cheap phone services too - now I'd sign up for that!!!

Not wanting to dampen the enthusiasm, but without knowing how many people the BPL trial is currently rolled out to it's hard to predict.

This is why some form of update from Engin management is required - as without knowing how many people the BPL trial is currently rolled out to it's hard to predict.

I'm not sure when the next AGM is, but I might take liberty to write directly to Ilkka with a series of questions to ensure my voting is based on my perception and measurement of the board/managements performance (noting the performance incentives they stand to gain!). Whilst I don't quite crack a mention in the top 20 shareholders, every vote sends a message that we want whats best for the long term share price.

The questions I have in mind are as follows: -

Update on Tasmanian BPL trial with Aurora. Number of BPL users and of these how many use Engin and what percentage of total revenue this consitutes (remember, it's only a trial and if it is not extended we actually stand to loose this subscriber base). On this point, I'll also seek clarity on whether the subscriber numbers reported are inclusive or exclusive of the BPL trial.

Call volumes categorised by fixed vs variable price. I'd also like to see this expressed in terms of revenue and the growth rates in volumes. Afterall, eventually the rate of subscriber uptake will start to tail off and frequency and type of usage then become a key determining factor in revenue growth.

Initiatives to penetrate other markets - for example, I really would like to see Engin target youth hostels, hotels, conventions (a mobile Engin VoIP(phone)box??), really anywhere that there is potential demand from transient users. I recall fondly calling Australia from Peru using VoIP more than 4 years ago! There's a revenue stream to be tapped.

Clarification on the subscriber numbers required to reach breakeven. Is this figure 30K or 40K and have operational efficiences been achieved to realise breakeven sooner? Furthermore, what internal initiatives are under way to achieve a sustainable and optimal Cost Per Subscriber ?

Whether any plans are in place regarding WiFi Voip.


These are only the items I can think of - I'm happy to hear others that people feel could be included for Ilkka and his team to kindly respond to....

Hi crazy

Great idea.

Add to that:

1. How are plans for NZ going?
2. Same for Asia expansion
3. Were the interference problems in Tassie trial overcome?
4. Is the current 2 for 1 offer increasing sign ups - potentially could double the number of new customers of every sales call in
5. Are dividends on the cards this year

I understand your realistic view of Tassie trialm but at least it sounds very very positive, it was only a trial with no results until today - at least now it "seems" they will roll it out in 6 months, and did not indicate they would do anything else but continue the rollout with Engin as the infrastructure

cheers

pharaoh said:

......
1. How are plans for NZ going?
2. Same for Asia expansion
3. Were the interference problems in Tassie trial overcome?
4. Is the current 2 for 1 offer increasing sign ups - potentially could double the number of new customers of every sales call in
5. Are dividends on the cards this year

.....
cheers

Click to expand...

Good ones to add.

Don't expect that an answer on question 5 would be forthcoming though and suspect they'd want to have 12 months in the black before making any distribution and setting expectations on ongoing return

Yeah fair enough too.
I have dug up a bit of info direct from them of late, thanks for running with this one.

Let us know how you go, would love to get some feedback on all these.

Re: ENG - Engin Limited - nice

How good was today - it has positioned itself now for the next climb up if you ask me.

Can't remember if I posted this, but just for the record, if they got 10% of the 500,000 in tas, that would be $45 per user which is $2,250,000 per month revenue......

Up or down in % it is still pretty impressive!