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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.

Our research is independent and evidence-based, covering all sides of the market: consumers, leading companies, industry trends, forecasts and public policy & regulation. A complete list of our research can be found here.

 

Rigorous Fearless Independent

As Karen Egan at Enders Analysis argued: “It is heartening to see that the CMA has taken the time to get to grips with the complexities of the industry”, so allowing a probable decision “counter to the knee-jerk assumption that four to three mergers are anti-competition”. True, network integration is hard, not least when cost cuts hurt staff morale. And the regulators would need to ensure Voda/Three lived up to its promises, with penalties for poor delivery. But the pair have a case that their merger is “pro-growth, pro-customer and pro-competitive”. The CMA is right not to hang up on this four-to-three deal.

 

President Trump will likely impose much higher tariffs on most imported goods, which could ignite retaliation by major trading partners and reverse decades of post-war globalisation.

America's biggest tech brands are vulnerable: we assess $570 billion of exposure to sales in China and the Chinese supply chain for six large companies generating over $2 trillion in revenue. 

Apple and Tesla are major investors in China to supply that market, and demand for their products could be blown off course by a wave of anti-US sentiment.   

Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, also said the CMA appears to have all but approved the proposed Vodafone-Three merger.

Writing on LinkedIn, Egan said the CMA believes that the merger could be pro-competition “so long as it can be assured that the network promises of the merging parties will be fulfilled, and that the short-term customer protections that it talked about in its provisional findings (social tariffs, contract terms rolling over, wholesale reference offer) can be put in place.”

Egan pointed out that this is a step forward from the CMA’s provisional findings, “where it put forward such remedies, but also discussed structural remedies (although largely discounted them), and listed blocking the merger altogether as a remedy (which it did not discount).”

Three, which tends to have a younger customer base, generally has some of the cheapest monthly contracts among the four biggest mobile network operators, according to figures from Enders Analysis.

However, telecoms analysts are not convinced that the tie-up will necessarily lead to higher prices. “There doesn’t seem to be a correlation between fewer mobile players and consumer pricing,” said Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis.

The WSL's new rights deal with Sky and the BBC starting in 2025 is worth 82% more per season than the current deal, and offers the league unprecedented prominence with every game broadcast live.

As Sky Sports seeks to diversify its audiences, the WSL is a logical investment: its audiences are small, but younger and more female-skewing than other competitions.

Free-to-air exposure is essential for the reach of women's football; the BBC and ITV's new deals should fuel continued growth in grassroots participation.

VMO2’s Q3 results were mixed, with underlying revenue and EBITDA slightly improving (but still negative), subscriber momentum slightly improved, but customer service issues still apparent.

The company’s broadband momentum is clearly being significantly curtailed by altnet gains (and Openreach overbuild), with substantial network expansion resulting in anaemic subscriber growth.

A return to growth in 2025 certainly looks possible, but it will depend on customer service issues being resolved, and industry consolidation going VMO2’s way. 

James Barford, director of telecoms at Enders Analysis, says convincing investors of the company’s fibre broadband strategy is Kirkby’s greatest success. “Rolling out full fibre into 30 million homes is a huge undertaking.

“Under previous management they suspended the dividend [in 2020], the first time since privatisation in 1984, in order to pay for it, saying that when they finished the rollout it would increase free cashflow to £3 billion a year by the end of the decade.”

Barford says that Kirkby, BT’s first female chief executive, has convinced investors that the fibre rollout (which has been much slower than in other European countries) will happen and will make money in the long run.

“The reason the share price is up is because she is getting everything right, giving clear forward guidance and, importantly, sticking to BT’s core purpose. There is still a long way to go but it appears the full success is not priced in.”