I used to own a piece of Vonage Holdings (NYSE: VG). For reasons entirely unrelated to the company's or the stock's performance, I had to sell it in early July of 2010. That's been all right, because the stock sat just about at my selling price last night, nearly six months later.
And then Vonage released preliminary fourth-quarter results, and the stock took off like a rocket. I wish I had my shares back on a day like this.
I can't complain too much, because I bought in at $0.39 per share in the spring of 2009 and sold for six times that amount a little over a year later. Vonage's balance sheet has always looked scary, but the company had started wringing strongly positive cash flows out of low or negative earnings, and I was sure Vonage would turn things around. Buy when everyone else is selling, said Baron von Rothschild, so I did.
And Vonage's fourth quarter is validating my thesis. Churn is the lowest Vonage has seen in four years at 2.4%, the company is adding net subscribers after two years of constant bleeding, and the $40 million in estimated EBITDA is the highest in company history.
The Vonage World plan is the star player in Vonage's portfolio, giving consumers a very compelling price point for international calling. I'm calling my family in Sweden and my wife's in Guatemala using the competing Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Voice service instead because it's a smidge cheaper, but then it's also flaky from time to time and cumbersome to use unless you're sporting an Android handset. Also, I'm saving with Google mainly because I don't call home a lot (bad son!), so the lack of monthly fees makes up for a disadvantage in per-minute rates.
Vonage's solution is a better choice for many consumers, and both of these Internet-powered options beat the socks off any international calling plans offered by traditional landline and wireless powers Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T).
With early legal troubles far in the rearview mirror and broadband Internet pipes becoming the standard rather than the exception, Vonage seems poised for a few years of rapid growth in number of subscribers, sales, and profits -- starting right about now. I think it's time I look at buying back those shares I sold last summer.
For some reason, our CAPS community still gives Vonage a terrible one-star rating and fellow Fool Anand Chokkavelu hates it with a passion. I think the stock deserves better, and my "outperform" pick is actively supporting my All-Star CAPS status. Join my quest to restore Vonage's respect by adding your own thumbs-up rating right now.
