Twitter Blue to the rescue? In the three months since the $8 per month subscription launched, only 300,000 users have registered, generating a mere $28 million in revenue, according to Enders Analysis. On the horizon is an ad free Twitter Blue (cost to be confirmed) and a gold verification for organisations at $1,000 per month. Neither have generated any revenue to date. But Musk’s masterplan is to turn Twitter into a Chinese-style super-app under the holding company “X Corp” offering messaging, payments and entertainment. But according to Joseph Teasdale, Enders’s head of technology, “it’s a pipe dream”. Twitter has neither the regulatory environment nor demographics which underpinned the success of the Chinese apps that Musk wishes to emulate. He needs the advertisers.
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Joseph Teasdale, head of technology at Enders Analysis, says some of the problems faced by the digital darlings during that formative time (the terrible technological teen years) were that they remained “good pitches still looking for a business plan”. Investors will happily splurge cash on the hope of future success, but only for a finite amount of time.
James Barford was quoted in BBC News on "BT to cut 55,000 jobs with up to a fifth replaced by AI"
19 May 2023James Barford, head of telecoms research at Enders Analysis, said the BT job cuts were mostly about fewer people being needed in building networks, whereas the Vodafone cuts were "more general efficiency savings".
He said that in both cases plans were "already broadly in place, with savings previously described in monetary terms rather than headcount reduction".
Possibly, the firms are now talking about job cuts "to help convince sceptical investors that they will actually deliver the promised savings", Mr Barford added.
Vodafone: A self-justifying strategy
18 May 2023Whilst Vodafone’s new strategy has some merits, its attempts to appease everyone involves inherent contradictions, ambiguity, and contrived attempts to prove its value as a conglomerate.
Its rapidly declining FCF outlook is calling dividend sustainability into question but there is much insistence that financial prospects will improve from here. We view this year’s guidance as achievable, but not easily so, and growth thereafter as on the optimistic side.
Corporate break-up is off the table for now with e& in the strategic driving seat and in empire-building mode. Consolidation in the UK and Italy remains on the agenda however, and arguably is the most tangible potential upside for investors.
Alice Enders, a music industry expert at the consultancy Enders Analysis, said Masuch was a legend in the music industry whose “shoes may be hard to fill”. But she said that, as a former CFO, Coesfeld understood the business “extremely well”. She described him as a “good choice” to continue the “sound financial management” at BMG.
Yaccarino “has the right credentials” to reassure large advertisers, says Joseph Teasdale, head of technology at Enders Analysis. He adds that Musk “may well be sick of running Twitter” and hiring a new CEO will allow him to turn his attention elsewhere.
But “the risk is Musk, as the majority owner, will be as unpredictable and interventionist as he has been as CEO.”
The challenge of net zero
17 May 2023This report is free to access.
Climate change is again a core theme of this year’s Media and Telecoms 2023 & Beyond Conference, as it has been since 2021 when the UK hosted COP26.
Published in March 2023, the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report points to alarming warming trends due to rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Echoing the messaging of COP26 and COP27, the IPCC implores signatories: “Emissions should be decreasing by now and will need to be cut by almost half by 2030, if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C.” With many governments stymied by short-term political exigencies, it is businesses and people that must harbour the ambition for net zero that our planet requires.
This year’s report highlights the climate change initiatives of TMT companies to decarbonise operations, and their society-leading role towards the environment. Media businesses are mobilising their touchpoints with their audiences—from news, to magazines, to audio-visual productions such as films, TV programmes, games and advertising—to inform and win over hearts and minds in favour of climate action. Case studies of the Guardian, WPP, Ad Net Zero, Bertelsmann, Vivendi, Sky, BT Group, and Virgin Media O2 provide best practice learnings.
Karen Egan, senior telecoms analyst and head of mobile for Enders Analysis, has heard this all before: “I’m ready to be convinced by the turnaround but I and investors have been burnt by all the right promises at all the right times and then not being delivered on before. So no matter what she announced there will be scepticism around it until changes happen and gain momentum.”
Karen Egan, head of mobile at Enders Analysis, says: “There’s a real question mark about where Vodafone adds value here, or does it detract value? The very essence of why Vodafone exists has to be called into question now.”
She added “People have been burned. There have been many promises of a turnaround, but it just didn’t come to fruition.”
“The concern here is this sounds a lot like another one of Nick Read’s promises,” says Egan. “It needs to sound like there’s more conviction and more urgency behind it.”
“Keeping the whole group together suits them,” says Egan. “I think that the likelihood of any of the individual markets being sold off to private equity will not appeal to e& but may be in the best interests of shareholders.”