With a name like Net2Phone (NASDAQ:NTOP), a surging stock price seems to be a no-brainer. After all, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) is a hot sector with many biggies seeing growth, such as Lucent (NYSE:LU), Nortel (NYSE:NT), Sonus (NASDAQ:SONSE), Alcatel (NYSE:ALA), and Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO).
Yet the stock price of Net2Phone has been lackluster.
Last week, the company announced its earnings, which were not particularly exciting. The company had a loss of $462,000, which compares to a $9.3 million loss in the same period a year ago. But revenues declined from $23.8 million to $21.5 million.
Essentially, Net2Phone provides a turnkey solution to allow telecom service providers to offer VoIP services to customers. However, it is the company's new focus on midsize cable operators that promises the most growth.
And Net2Phone has had lots of traction in this market, recently snagging seven new operators. The coverage is more than 2.3 million homes. In fact, Net2Phone's cable business is almost like a formula. That is, the business can be replicated easily from deal to deal.
But, as is typical, Wall Street wants results in the near term, which is not realistic for Net2Phone. For example, the company's cable revenues were only $1.4 million in the prior quarter. So while Net2Phone is certainly focusing on a lucrative market, it will definitely take some time for the company to see substantive financial results from its recent cable deals.
Fool contributor Tom Taulli is the author of The EDGAR Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements . He does not own shares in any of the stocks mentioned.
