The automaker's Internet activities include a global business-to-business purchasing network, satellites that deliver email and related services to drivers, and a GMBuyPower Web site through which more vehicles are sold and delivered.
"Nothing has the potential for higher returns in the next five years," GM president Richard Wagoner, who said he barely used a personal computer 12 months ago, told reporters in a year-end meeting.
GM is focusing on the Internet to streamline its internal operations, increase sales and appeal to younger buyers. Potential customers in their 20s spend so much time online that GM may design for them in the next decade a car sold exclusively over the Internet, Wagoner said. The automaker would carry out such a move only if it didn't antagonize dealerships, he said.
"The aspect that excites me the most, and should excite shareholders, are these business-to-business networks that GM and Ford are setting upon," said Saul Rubin, an auto analyst with Warburg Dillon Read LLC in New York.
Rubin said both GM and Ford Motor Co. will receive 50 percent or more of the revenue stream from their Internet exchanges, in addition to a stake in the companies, which he estimates could add $15 to GM's share price and $8 to Ford's.
"If there is anything behind the big rallies in the share price for the companies that run the business-to-business exchanges, then surely there is value in it for Ford and GM as well."
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