All those stats are great but they curiously don’t mention how much $$ they are losing.  Spin it however you like, Helio is a sinking ship.

And who are you, JP, to have a knowledge of what Helio’s “ship” is doing?

If you remember amp’d, they would always brag that their average Revenue per user was over $X. This distracted from the fact that their customers were running up huge bills and not paying. No idea if Helio is in the same boat, but they’re framing things the same way.

They most definately are not. Being a multi-carrier representative, I can tell you that if a Helio subscriber does not pay their bill, they cannot access their phone in any way(INCLUDING phone books, previous texts, music, etc..). They most definately are on top of their billing system.

Anthony, that is partially wrong. When someone doesn’t pay their bill and their account is suspended, they can still access all features of the phone aside from internet applications and calling, obviously. Anything else that is local to the phone can still be accessed.

That said, Helio is doing awesome, they are going to be around for a long time.

And who are you, CO, to think I am wrong? 

Seriously though, you are probably right...the MVNO market is flush with success stories, especially from those carriers whose investors are spewing all the fantastic metrics they have (except of course the bottom line) as they run for the hills. 

Come to think of it , I’m gonna invest heavily in Helio.  Based on those great numbers, this is a goldmine!  Thanks for turning my thinking around CO.  Say hi to the fairies and unicorns in Delusional Land for me!

according to the earthlink 10-Q, earthlink’s share of the helio losses was $111.3m loss through the first 9 months of ‘07, not the entire year (because of an accounting change, Earthlink won’t have to recognize a proportionate share of the helio loss for Q407).  Helio generated a net operating loss of ~$241mm through the first nine months of ‘07 ($125mm loss in Q3), on revenue of $115mm ($52mm in Q3).

Despite all those mktg $$s, their subscriber base decreased from approx 5.3 million paying subscribers as of September 30, 2006 to approx 4.2 million paying subscribers as of September 30, 2007.

So JP, the stats are there if you just look beyond the “sound bytes”.  But CO, you don’t have to be an insider to see that the biz model just doesn’t work.