After TeleAtlas' 3rd quarter results released yesterday we had a price loss of temporarly up to 10% and closed with a loss of 5,62% at the German Xetra exchange.
A quite elusive reaction since TeleAtlas' revenues grew by 25% (22% in Europe and 44% in North America - both excluding the GDT acquisition) and net loss was reduced from ⬠20 mio. in 2003 to ⬠11.5 mio.
Only the CF of ⬠28 mio. compared to ⬠32.7 mio. in 2003 needs some improvement, which is expected next year to be positive.
Regarding the strength of the dollar, TeleAtlas is suffering from and the costly acquisition of GDT in 2Q yesterday's price loss is unjustified, especially against the background of the following developments:
- Denso has chosen TeleAtlas instead of Navteq for their nav system, which comes e.g. with all Cadillac STS models
- Mercedes-Benz will equip A and C class with Harman-Becker's latest nav system and TeleAtlas data
- personal nav applications (PDA- and cellphone-based) grew by three digit rates
- the integration of the TeleAtlas and GDT (acquired in 2Q) North America database will result a North American map, "that is clearly superior to any other available in the marketplace" (quote from 3Q report, p. 3). Navteq has to fear market share very much and customers like Toyota/Lexus are likely to chose a TeleAtlas-only solution for their nav systems, which are currently based on Navteq's and TeleAtlas' maps.
- TeleAtlas will be the first to provide full map coverage of whole Eastern Europe by 2005, a region with significant growth rates, especially in the new European Union members states.
- Activities in India also promise high growth rates in future.
See the 3rd quarter report attached to this posting and
http://www.teleatlas.com/template_overview.jsp?ctype=investor&contentpage=investor_about.jsp for a recording of a analyst conference call available from Nov, 11th.
After Navteq's price also fell allthough a positive 3Q report on Oct 28th, I actually reckoned with yesterday's loss.
So now there is the opportunity to buy below ⬠9 - I am quite sure, we will pass ⬠10 by this year.