The Earthlink-SK Telecom joint venture MVNO Helio, aimed at young audiences, is set to launch within the next two weeks or so, according to Earthlink CEO Gary Betty, speaking to analysts at the Q1 earnings conference call. The launch was delayed by at least two months…he said: “We’re just a couple months behind what we originally thought we were going to do in terms of rolling out the handsets.”
In terms of continued investment in Helio, Kevin Dotts, Earthlink CFO said: “At this point, no change from what we’ve been saying since the launch last year. We said, we’ll take our share of their equity losses, that will be $90 million to $110 million on our income statement. By the end of 2006, they’ll have been funded roughly $360 million worth of cash. There’ll be another $40 million that will be funded by both partners next year. As we see that right now, that will be adequate capital…The only caveat to that discussion will be how quickly they actually grow. If they grow faster, it may require more capital. That would be a good problem to have. If they’re growing slower, then certainly it’s not going to require more capital.”
During Q1, it had $7.3 million in losses due to Helio…in Q2, it expects a loss of $20 million in the Helio. EarthLink continues to expect its proportionate share of the losses in Helio to be $90.0 million to $110.0 million.
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post