We begin coverage of MIMVI, a pure-play app search company for the hyper-growth Mobile Internet market.
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NBT Research Report: Mimvi (MIMV)
NBT Equities Research has extended coverage on Mimvi, Inc., a proprietary mobile app search and recommendation engine technology company. Our $1.25 2013 target represents a blended valuation of the recent $50,000,000 acquisition price of competitive rival Chomp.com by Apple and post-round valuation of @$70,000,000 for the mobile app search engine. Quixey.com.
The Investment Thesis: Mimvi.com is the LAST Man Standing in Advanced Mobile Search & Recommendation Technology
As we and others have pointed out over the last 24 months:
#1 the move toward the mobile Internet/mobile applications and the mobile app economy and the move AWAY from the static websites is the most powerful and disruptive force in technology.
#2 Apps have become one of the strongest weapons Apple and Google have for marketing their mobile technologies to consumers. 46 million apps are downloaded from the Apple App store every day…with the Google App store closing the gap every day and now up to 30 million a day.
These two secular disruptions means that App Search & Recommendation has become as important to the 6 Super Giants of Consumer Technology—Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung & Amazon—as browsers, email and search was during the age of the web page.
Missing the switch to mobile apps has super-charged the demise of mobile platforms like Research In Motion, Nokia and hurt Facebook, Microsoft, and PC players Dell and HP with the rise of Apples iPad as a mobile alternatives to laptop PCs. Indeed Mark Zuckerberg is quoted as saying his greatest fear is Facebook becoming just another app on other mobile platforms.
In short, Mobile App & Recommendation is Now TOO Big to Fail for The Internet Super Giants.
ALL of this strategic opportunity and carnage has led the majors to BUY their way to results—too much time is required to build from scratch. Apple bought mobile app search & recommendation engine Chomp for $50 million and immediately shut down the service to apps outside its app store. Google’s Eric Schmidt just invested $20 million in Quixey (an @$70 million valuation) to secure its mobile app search and recommendation for the Google Economy.
The next logical acquisition?
Mimvi (MIMV)—it’s now not a matter of IF but WHEN.
Mimvi is a search and discovery or recommendation engine for all mobile apps. It has been described in the tech press as “Google for Mobile Apps.” In other words, Mimvi’s proprietary technology is an agnostic mobile apps search and recommendation platform.
Our guess is they do NOT remain agnostic for long—there ARE no agnostics in a world war, which is what we are witnessing on a daily basis from the Web Super Giants. Of the remaining players in mobile app search, Appoliscious is closely associated with Yahoo and Appsfire is mostly a marketing platform with no technological edge.
This leaves Mimvi—with its proprietary contextual app search and recommendation technology, as the NEXT mobile app player to be brought up to the “major leagues” via acquisition. Most likely buyers are Microsoft and Samsung with Sony, Facebook and Amazon in the hunt.
Mimvi’s revenue opportunities are similar to Google: auctioned search words like AdWords and sponsored search ads. They also are working on a contextual search system like Google's AdSense called MimviLink where they match mobile apps to content. Perhaps NOT coincidently, Google's financial controller recently joined Mimvi and likely to focus on revenue and partnerships.
Here is pretty good summary of the space “4 Companies Poised to Control the New Mobile App Economy.
Summary
The Windows Phone Marketplace reportedly hits 100,000 applications with 313 new apps added daily. Apple and Google’s app stores have millions of apps. ALL media products (TV shows, Movies, Videos, Books, Magazines) are now (or will be) mobile apps. 50% of all mobile phones will be smart phones by 2015—around the world. The iPad will sell 200 million units next year…and close to a billion iPhones and iPads will be in the hands of consumers by 2020.
Mobile App discovery and recommendation is still mostly pathetic—with the support of a major player Mimvi has a real shot at becoming a major player.
At .30 a share, it’s a steal as we shareholders wait for the inevitable.
UPDATE:
MIMV just published on Seeking Alpha: Game-Changers: 5 Mobile App Search Leaders To Watch.
Minutes ago: http://seekingalpha.com/article/687351-game-changers-5-mobile-app-search-leaders-to-watch
Disclosure: NBT Communications owns one million MIMIV shares from past investor marketing engagements.
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