Vonage Losses Mount

In case you were wondering, Vonage's latest financials show a loss that grew from $13.8M during the same period last year to $40.9M. (Depends how you calculate losses because they had like 3 numbers plus a cash flow positive number. Wall Street - no wonder we are screwed right now).

• Revenue did grow 3 percent to $222.2 million for 4Q
• Customer growth = net loss of 14,700
• "Churn declined to 2.9% per month in Q4 from 3% last quarter"
• ARPU is $28.33 per subscriber, compared to $28.75 in Q3.
• Revenue increase of 9% to $900M for the year
• How did revenue grow? With ARPU and net subs down??? New fees?
• "$31M in debt extinguishment costs" for the quarter
• "first year of generating positive cash flow from operations"
• how does it have positive cash flow while losing money???

"While marketing costs were down $3 million in the quarter, the "SLAC" - marketing cost per gross subscriber line addition - rose to $309 from $272 in Q3 2008. This is not good math, especially when net subscribers are down. (Take the ARPU number, multiply by 12 months, subtract SLAC, see red ink after a year once operational costs per subscriber are factored in)." [voip biz news]

Deltrathree closed up (bought by ACN). Now Vonage is in danger of de-listing in April. As Phone+ points out, the press doesn't even seem to care. But cable, telco, and cellular have the stranglehold on consumer voice, because bundles are easy to sell due to perceived value.