Companies: AFN   

Loss-making financial website ADVFN has been consistent in producing new products and eye-catching promotions, but seems to be less adept at the neglected art of actually making profits. William Davidson reports.

Since coming to the market in March 2000, the site and the overall offering has expanded. But the share price has collapsed from last year's high of 62.5p to 5p.

The basic package (which is available free of charge and is funded largely by advertising revenue) offers the regulatory news service (RNS), share price information and portfolio tracking tools. These are all fairly standard features that are found on most decent financial information sites. The 'paid-for' package includes a premium bulletin board service and Level 2 trading information - where punters can see details of every trade going through the order book.

ADVFN's commercial director, the aptly named Martin Talks, said that the idea is to get visitors to 'graduate from the free site to the premium area. Often people don't know what they are after, but once they realise what is available, they are prepared to pay £35 a month for it'.

Unfortunately, Talks seemed more keen to talk about new developments than the nitty-gritty of how many people were actually migrating to the non-free site.

New developments are being pencilled in on all fronts - digital TV, mobile technology (via the link-up with Orange), training courses and data visualisation software packages. Talks promises that there will be 'interesting news' forthcoming in the next few months. And he estimates that ADVFN will be 'cash-positive' by the end of the year. Whether this is the same thing as being profitable is a moot point.

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