5 reasons why iSentia Group Ltd could be the best stock of 2015

Media monitoring is big business and iSentia Group Ltd (ASX:ISD) is the Asia-Pacific leader.

Andrew Mudie

Andrew joined the growing team of Motley Fool freelance writers in mid-2013 following years of personal development as a passionate self-taught sharemarket investor. At the time, Andrew was an engineer by trade, writer by hobby, and an investing nerd by passion who spent far too many breaks reading, writing and learning. Andrew’s first investing lesson came with his first stock selection in 2011 when takeover rumours caused a spike and subsequent plunge in the share price of Woodside and then the 21% fall in the market through mid-2011. The next four years of investing saw Andrew dabble in a vast array of strategies until settling on his favourite investment methodology, which is closely aligned with that of the Motley Fool: Fundamentals-based long-term buy-and-hold of great companies at great prices.

Published February 4, 2015 8:46 am AEDT

As the world transitions further and further into the digital age, the need for timely information, data, and feedback will increase exponentially. Companies employ a broad range of metrics to track the success or otherwise of a marketing campaign, a new product, or even individual employee. iSentia Group Ltd (ASX: ISD) is able to provide these metrics by providing media monitoring services including:

mainstream (news, radio, internet) media monitoring,
social media (Facebook, Twitter) monitoring,
media measurement and analysis,
contact (reach) management, and
media release distribution.

Here are five reasons why I believe iSentia is in for a big year:

iSentia is the dominant force in the Asia-Pacific media monitoring and information market with over 5,000 clients in the region, including up to 90% of the world's largest brands and companies. It is estimated to have a 28% revenue share in the $400 million per year local industry, including a dominant 85% market share in Australia and New Zealand.
iSentia has all the connections. One of the benefits of being in operation since 1982 is that the company has a great relationship with the local news providers. iSentia's software monitors over 5,000 media outlets, 55,000 online news sources and 3.4 million online content sources (including blogs, Twitter, etc).
iSentia uses a subscription model to generate annuity-style revenue. This is fantastic because it's work that the company only has to do once but gets paid many times over.
iSentia's client base is extremely well diversified. Incredibly, iSentia's top 50 clients have an average subscription time of 11 years and no one company makes up more than 1.5% of revenue.
iSentia has a sustainable competitive advantage. This advantage is the scale and software developed that would take a competitor a serious amount of time and money to replicate. Now, that's not to say that there aren't competitors, but there aren't any competitors that provide the range of services that iSentia does.

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