Streaming Two World Cups a Year Could Boost Akamai Stock By 3%
Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM) operates a global network of servers that help large websites like Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Monster (NYSE:MWW) deliver content to their end users. Akamai’s technology provides faster, more reliable downloads of shopping, media, gaming and other content.
The recently concluded soccer World Cup in South Africa was a major event for Akamai’s media content delivery network. Akamai delivered more than 1.6 million concurrent World Cup streams across its network at peak demand, according to the company. The majority of customers leveraged Akamai’s HD network, boosting the company’s revenue per media customer.
We estimate that the 2010 World Cup generated slightly more than $10 million in revenue for Akamai. Based on this figure, the company would need to stream about 33 new events of World Cup scale every year in order to double its media content delivery revenues.
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More realistically, we see a potential upside of 2% to 3% to our $28.41 price estimate for Akamai’s stock if the company streams two events of World Cup scale every year during the Trefis forecast period. Our analysis follows below.
World Cup added an estimated more than $10 million in revenue to Akamai
In terms of traffic, the 2010 World Cup was the largest global sporting event ever carried on Akamai’s network. Akamai’s World Cup traffic stayed consistently above 500 Gbps (gigabits per second) during the World Cup, which began in early June and ended in early July, according to Total Telecom, a website that tracks the telecom industry.
Traffic peaked during match hours. In order to calculate Akamai’s total World Cup traffic and associated revenue, we took into account the number of matches played and their importance. We estimate that total World Cup traffic on Akamai’s network was on the order of 170-200 million gigabits. Applying an average content delivery price of 6 cents per gigabit, we came up with a revenue contribution of slightly more than $10 million from a single event.
World Cup math
We estimate that Akamai’s Media Content Delivery business constitutes about 28% of the company’s share value. This amounts to $1.5 billion in absolute value based on our $5.4 billion total value estimate for Akamai.
Our back of the envelope calculation suggests that Akamai would need to stream at least 33 World Cups a year in order to double the value of its media content delivery business.
You can drag the trend-line in the chart below to create your own media content delivery revenue forecast for Akamai and see how it impacts the company’s stock price.
Here’s a more realistic scenario: If Akamai were to stream two new events of World Cup scale every year, its traffic would rise, boosting the company’s revenue per media customer. This could potentially create incremental value of $100 million, yielding a 2% to 3% upside to our stock price estimate for Akamai.
You can see the complete $28.41 Trefis price estimate for Akamai’s stock here.