Enders Analysis provides a subscription research service covering the media, entertainment, mobile and fixed telecommunications industries in Europe, with a special focus on new technologies and media.
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James Barford was quoted in an article on Gavin Patterson; the chief executive of BT. James said "He has imposed his own direction after a very strong chief executive [Ian Livingston]. But the sport strategy was inherited and mobile could be his first big decision to make". The acquisition of a mobile business would fit the bill by launching BT's ambitions to re-enter the consumer mobile market.
Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article discussing the fact that The Sun newspaper has doubled its number of digital subscribers to 225,000, but has failed to offset a decline in its overall paid readership. In August 2013 it introduced a pay wall and 102,000 people started paying in the first four months, however the new figures show that the rate of sign-ups has slowed substantially since. Douglas said the figures were "reasonably positive", while cautiously adding that there was a lack of historical data to judge them on.
TalkTalk had a solid quarter for net adds, helped by churn being held well under control, with broadband perking up, TV dipping down as pre-warned, and fibre and mobile both significantly accelerating
Revenue and ARPU growth accelerated, although not by as much as might have been expected given the timing of price rises, with the lower priced SimplyBroadband product likely still driving significant ARPU dilution
The company disappointed the financial markets with a warning of higher SACs in H2, and its medium term EBITDA margin target remains challenging, but continued revenue growth and margin expansion are nonetheless likely
Auto is the third category in our annual series of reports on UK classified advertising, following UK classifieds and recruitment category outlook [2014-094] and Property classified advertising [2014-098]. In this year’s report we analyse the key drivers in the communications marketplace for used cars, notably transaction volumes and pricing. Overall the auto market is relatively buoyant, with the post-recession new car sales boom starting to feed into used car revenues in 2014, although the sustainability of this credit fuelled growth is far from certain. Auto Trader remains the big beast in the marketplace after Guardian Media Group sold its 50.1% stake to Apax Partners earlier this year. Apax will likely be considering an IPO or sale, particularly as market conditions look favourable in 2015 and Auto Trader’s strong leadership position looks largely unchallenged.
Property is the second category in our annual series of reports on UK classified advertising, following UK classifieds overview and recruitment outlook [2014-094] and with autos to follow. Our property market report analyses the key drivers in the communications marketplace for UK domestic property, notably transaction rates and house prices, but also substantial developments in government policy. We analyse the estate agent marketplace and drill down into expenditure patterns for property advertising across all media, and provide five year forecasts. We also look at the online property advertising markets in Australia and the USA to gain a broader perspective on potential developments in the UK. Here, the competitive battle between Rightmove and Zoopla continues; estate agents' plans to stem the duopoly’s pricing power with the launch of a new portal in January will struggle to achieve consumer momentum unless there is a huge marketing investment.
Claire Enders is quoted in an article about Youtube and whether it is rewriting the rules of broadcasting. The rise of so called 'vloggers', such as Zoella, becoming disproportionately important to YouTube - despite only representing a fraction of the overall programming upload to Youtube, with music videos still accounting for more than half the six billion hours of content. With more than 6.5 million subscribers Zoella is a dream advocate for many fashion and beauty brands.
Vodafone Europe enjoyed a sharp improvement in mobile service revenue growth in its Q2, with the decline reduced to 5% from 8% the previous quarter
Part of this was due to a reduced regulatory impact, part was due to one-off factors, but underlying improvements are still clear across all major markets, with price declines attenuating and a significant improvement in competitive performance
In the short term the partial stabilisation of pricing is perhaps the result of a fairly fragile equilibrium which could shatter at any time, but Vodafone’s aggressive network investment and surging data volumes give confidence in a sturdier recovery going forward
Alice Enders was quoted in an article as YouTube launches a music subscription service, called 'YouTube Music Key'. This will offer advertising free videos, offline viewing and the ability to play music while the phone is locked. At full price it will cost $9.99 a month, with the people who play the most music on YouTube being given a free trail for six months.
Virgin Media had its best subscriber net adds for years in Q3, despite slowing market growth and intense competition from the DSL operators
Underlying cable revenue growth also remained solid at around 4.5%, business and mobile continued to perform well, and underlying OCF growth was stable at 6%
As the market moves to high speed broadband, Virgin Media is benefitting above all others, and this long gradual shift is still in its early stages