by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist

Cramer gets one right.

Once in a great while, Jim Cramer gets it right. I’m not a big fan, and certainly I don’t watch his show. In my opinion, anyone who relies on him as a sole source for investment advice might do just as well talking to a cab driver in New York.

But occasionally, his rants actually coincide with a company worth looking at… for the right reasons, of course. And yesterday he mentioned a wireless company that’s actually worth considering.

It’s one that I’ve been following for a while in the wireless sector.

Now, if you’re going to invest in a wireless telecommunications company, it’s important to pay close attention to where its customers are located. Why?

Because the strongest growth will occur in areas of the world where wireless still hasn’t penetrated to the extent it has in the U.S. and Europe.

The U.S. has somewhere in the neighborhood of 275 million cell phone users. Growth here is relatively stagnant, with only 4-5 million new users being added per quarter.

But there’s a huge country that’s adding users at the blistering pace of nearly 50% per year. No, it’s not China, (currently with over 400 million mobile users) as most would probably guess.

It’s one of China’s Asian neighbors – India – that has the fastest growing wireless market by a wide margin. At the end of 2007, India’s mobile telecom operators had roughly 233 million connections between them.

In 2008 they added 114 million more. That’s a 49% increase in just one year.

But they’re just getting started, and there’s plenty of torrid growth still to come. In the first two months of 2009, an additional 28 million more users were added. That represents an annualized growth rate of 96%, nearly twice that of 2008.

And one company that’s taking advantage of this torrid growth is Tekelec (Nasdaq: TKLC). Tekelec is a manufacturer of network signaling and number portability equipment, text and voice messaging equipment, as well as various other monitoring systems for telecom service providers.

But here’s the best part: it counts among its customers five of the top seven wireless carriers in India.

The company has nearly $4 in cash per share on its balance sheet. Shares are currently trading for about $17 a share, and have been on the move in advance of the company’s next earnings announcement, scheduled for May 7th.

Investors could look for any pullback after the announcement as a possible entry point.

If you’re looking for entertainment, turn on the Jim Cramer show, but if you’re looking for investment ideas, stick with Investment U.

Good investing,

Dave Fessler

View original at: Investment Advice and Investment Research with a Contrarian Point of View

Similar Posts: Tekelec | TKLC | Processing Systems & Products | Technology

RSS feeds: Tekelec | TKLC | Processing Systems & Products | Technology |

Other Posts by InvestmentU | RSS Feed for this author