If you have a hardcore preference for socially responsible investing, you may want to read something else right now. I'd suggest this excellent Duel on that topic, or this overview of great corporate citizens, or a close-up look at a tech company acting like an adult.
For the rest of us, there are some online gambling addicts to exploit.
Taiwanese online-gaming purveyor and Motley Fool Global Gains recommendation GigaMedia (Nasdaq: GIGM ) reported a sinfully good quarter, with 88% year-over-year revenue growth to $40.1 million, and more than double the adjusted year-ago earnings. CEO Arthur Wang explains his company's mass-market appeal best:
We are beginning to see the early returns from our investment in our Asian online games platform. ... With an exciting pipeline of new games and a footprint reaching over 64 million registered users, we are very enthusiastic, very confident that we have built the foundation of a powerful business.
That's 64 million paying subscribers to online gambling services like poker and mah-jongg, with an untapped market in the hundreds of millions yet to exploit -- I mean, explore. To put that subscriber count into perspective, consider that the two American satellite TV providers -- EchoStar (Nasdaq: DISH ) and DIRECTV (NYSE: DTV ) -- have only 13.6 million and 16.3 million subscribers, respectively. Combine those two numbers, and that's still less than half of GigaMedia's registered users. Even Verizon Wireless -- the chatty wireless arm of Verizon (NYSE: VZ ) -- can't outdo the gamblers with its 62.1 million subscribers. Clearly, GigaMedia has a nice plugged-in base that rivals domestic subscription services.
Yet GigaMedia is by far the smallest of these subscription services in terms of market cap, revenue, or earnings. The company is still scaling up its operations, and the Asian population is gaining economic ground on us Westerners, so you should expect to see this growth story continue over the next several years. There's a lot of market left to tap, and the customers already gained should be able to spend more money on gambling over time.
One vehicle of immediate growth lies in GigaMedia's plan to enter the affluent Japanese market this fall, with online versions of traditional Japanese diversions like Pachinko, Pachislo, and localized mah -jongg and card games. According to Wang, Pachinko alone is a $250 billion industry, ''larger than perhaps all the casinos in the world, added up together.'' If that's not an opportunity, I don't know what is.
GigaMedia -- with its expanding presence, user base, and strong pipeline of games -- is placing its bet on high growth going forward. Ah, addiction to paid services -- it's a beautiful thing. From a certain perspective, at least.
Bet you want related Foolishness:
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Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here, and his addictions lie elsewhere. You can check out Anders' holdings if you like, and Foolish disclosure can do no evil.
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