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In this report Chris Goodall carries out a brief analysis of Sky's results published today and compares them to our projections.

Our emphasis in this note is on ITV Digital. What are the options open to the two shareholders of ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada? How can they reduce the burden of supporting ITV Digital through the next few years? What is the likelihood (or otherwise) of substantial improvement in that company’s results, in particular break even in 2003?

At the current CSFB tech conference in Barcelona Ericsson stated that the expected handset market for 2001 will now be at lower end of its previously stated range of 430-480m; both it & Nokia said the reason was cuts to handset subsidies in Europe. Whilst we are relieved that our early emphasis on the impact of changes in operator strategies on the handset market in Europe has been proved right, we are in the process of revising upwards our own forecast of 300-350 million units based on growth in China (this forecast and spreadsheet will shortly be available).

For the future, we expect data traffic to slow given strong signs of a plateau in demand among businesses and changing residential payment models. However, we forecast a gradual evolution towards profitable ISP business models based on unsubsidised pricing for all forms of access. Indeed, we expect overall pure Internet access revenues to continue to grow until the latter part of the decade. This is plainly contrary to all those who predicted access would be free for all and a loss-leader for other forms of revenue, such as online advertising, e-commerce commissions and eCRM (direct marketing).

Mobile Phone Users

We have published extensively on digital TV in the past 18 months, consistently casting doubt on the potential of TV-centric interactive platforms to (a) generate enough income for operators to repay hardware subsidies and (b) compete with the PC for home shopping activity (t-commerce).

We see a clear distinction between the relative success of Sky and the continued slow growth of ITVdigital and the real difficulties being experienced by cable operators. Sky is gaining business while the other operators are struggling to retain their share. This is the first of two notes. In the first (attached), Chris Goodall examines the financial prospects of Sky in advance of its results next week. Chris looks at what would be good or bad numbers for Sky's results in all the main categories, and suggests reasons for short-term optimism. In our next note, which will be sent out on Monday, I analyse ITVdigital and question whether anything can be done to improve its prospects. The launch of ITVsport does not help, with its huge programming budget and limited opportunities.

Chris Goodall has dissected the economics of the major pay-TV operators. He finds that if current trends continue, BSkyB, NTL and Telewest will not generate the cash to pay back their debt in the foreseeable future. In the case of the cable companies this leaves the debt holders exposed. Equity holders should be concerned about further dilution from future debt to equity conversion.

This note examines the US 'spectrum shortage' campaign. We think that US 3G services will be forced to use existing spectrum, rather than move to greenfield frequencies. This is highly relevant to Europe because the lack of dedicated 3G spectrum in the US strongly favours CDMA2000 over Europe's preferred WCDMA. We see signs that several US operators will have CDMA2000 based 3G systems in place, with fully-functioning handsets, long before Europe. The onward march of GSM and its successors into the US may not be the foregone conclusion that some expect. Deutsche Telecom's bridgehead, VoiceStream, is not, for example, as well positioned as Sprint PCS. Furthermore, Vodafone's attempt to get Verizon Wireless to use WCDMA looks ill-conceived to us.

In our forthcoming report ‘BT Restructured Into Pieces’ we detail our views on BT's prospects as a separated entity, and consider the mooted spinning out of BT Wholesale in light of Oftel's current regulatory tone. In the report we argue that Oftel is likely to be favour the separation of Wholesale from Retail since Oftel has been disappointed with the rate at which effective competition has developed in the telecoms market, particularly in the residential market.  In no small part, one of the barriers to the development of effective competition has been the vertical integration of BT. There is no incentive for BT Wholesale to hasten the process of cutting access costs to the network, or to unbundle the local loop. Each of these activities would harm BT's retailing activities, and BT Retail generates extremely high returns on capital (184%pa).

In our recent report on 3G infrastructure, we analysed published actual contract values that demonstrated that claims that large European 3G networks would cost 5bn Euros or more each were very unlikely to be correct, at least in the next three years. We hypothesised that European operators would install a basic network which covered most of the national population, but that low needs for data transmission would mean that this network would suffice for the conceivable future. We showed that limited networks, costing no more than a few hundred million Euros, would be able to carry the fixed line voice traffic of most of the population.

In other words, in an effort to stop subscriber numbers falling, the networks have created an incentive for a user to send just one 10p SMS or make one 5p call during each six-month period. If this is the price of retaining a number, it can reasonably be expected that most inactive subscribers will fall into line; one never knows when that second phone given to you by Aunty Mabel last Christmas might come in useful. The single action of sending one SMS would enable the operator to move a subscriber back onto the 'active' list.

The UK telecoms regulator, Oftel, has just (1st May) produced a briefing note that seems to encourage the idea of infrastructure sharing of third generation mobile networks. It defines 'infrastructure sharing' as including both physical sharing of sites, and also the sharing of capacity. The example Oftel gives is interesting. It says that two operators could divide up the country, one, say, building a network in Manchester, the other in Leeds. They could then allow free 'roaming' between the cities.

Our primary purpose is to provide revenue forecasts for the next three years. Our central forecast sees Retail revenues falling at percentage rates in the low single digits. Wholesale revenues are driven by different forces and will rise rapidly next year, and at a slower rate thereafter. The rise in Wholesale revenues will not be enough to stop a fall in overall income.

NTL's quarterly results demonstrate an abrupt change of strategy. Customer acquisition has all but ceased. Increasing telecom prices is the new battle plan. This is sensible, but we question whether the potential revenue gains can do much for debt or equity holders. If UK customer numbers have peaked, even optimism about ARPU will not produce free cash flow. Our scepticism remains. NTL continues to raise money in huge volumes. But note that this quarter's capex (even after the end of the so-called network build-out) is still almost four times EBITDA because investment in providing new services has to continue (e.g. digital set-top boxes).

European handset sales have collapsed due to maturity of markets, lengthening replacement cycles and significant changes in operator marketing strategies.

Approximately 10-15% of European wireless users have multiple active SIMs; thus subscriber growth has actually been slower than reported and replacement cycles have been faster than perceived; this situation has now reversed in our opinion. The use of multiple active SIMs will diminish over time in our opinion, providing a further brake on sales.