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Benedict Evans was quoted in an article rounding up analyst reactions to the announcement of Apple's iOS 7. "I think they maintained the status quo", he commented. In his view it has "not really changed anything fundamental."
Benedict Evans was quoted in John Gapper's column, a discussion of Google. “It’s easy for consumers to switch to another search engine, but it is difficult to make anything as good,” he said.
“Google is a massive machine learning project, and it’s been feeding the machine for a decade.”
In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on reques
UK residential communications revenue growth was very strong in Q1 2013, rising to 4.6% from 2.1% in the previous quarter with most of the improvement driven by improved unit ARPU growth, which turned positive for the first time since early 2011
We expect unit volume growth to remain strong for the rest of the year, although ARPU growth is likely to moderate as overlapping price increases drop out, but it is still likely to be firmer than 2012 given the continued growth of high speed broadband (at least at BT and Virgin Media) and firm pricing in general
The outlook for market shares is less certain, with a number of difficult-to-predict factors coming into play, and while we do not expect dramatic changes in market share to result from any of these factors, they do create a risk of pushing operators to adopt more aggressive pricing strategies, which would disrupt an otherwise very healthy outlook
Benedict Evans was quoted in an article discussing the narrowing gap in app downloads between Android and iOS devices. That narrowing is largely attributable to the greater number of Android devices in use; the gap between the two operating systems in apps downloaded per user is as great as ever, with iOS leading.
"When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, they were five years ahead of anyone else,” said Benedict. “We’ve now reached the point where there is a viable competing product that has more or less matched Apple.”
“There are big holes in Google Now and in Siri, but they are both trying to get beyond typing a search or clicking on an app, to become a more intelligent version of how your phone might help you.”
Overall UK mobile revenue growth slipped slightly in Q1, dropping 0.4ppts to -4.3%, although, taking into account the leap year effect, underlying growth likely improved a touch, marking the second quarter of growth being at least stable
EE announced 4G subscriber figures for the first time, reporting 318k subscribers at the end of the quarter, a very respectable figure given coverage, handset and price tier limitations. We expect this figure to grow strongly as coverage rolls out and 4G handset availability spreads, but the 4G revenue premium is still unlikely to be significant in 2013
The outlook for revenue growth in the rest of 2013 is fairly positive – the MTR impact will partly drop out from Q2 onwards, boosting reported revenue by over 2ppts, some mid-contract price increases will take effect, and pricing (so far) has remained reasonably stable
Channel 4 enjoyed a bumper year in 2012 with regard to delivering its public service remit, epitomised by the London Paralympics
Public service successes notwithstanding, the continuing decline in main Channel 4 audience share post digital switchover is not being fully compensated commercially by large gains across the rest of the Channel 4 portfolio
Overall, we expect group revenues to remain quite stable in 2013 and 2014, but current record levels of investment in programme content origination have yet to bear fruit in terms of strong returning series
Google Play, the digital content platform from Google for Android devices, has added a music subscription service to the sale of music, ebooks, videos and apps.
All Access, available only in the US initially, benefits from integration in Google Play, the default storefront on Android smartphones and tablets (excepting Amazon’s Kindle Fire). All Access isn’t available on Apple devices, in the majority in the US, severely limiting its reach.
Google’s main objective with Google Play is to support the Android ecosystem and attract and retain Android device owners, and thus OEMs and developers. We expect Google Play to operate slightly above break even like iTunes.
As smartphones have grown in the UK, so has mobile use of social networks However, mobile messaging services that offer an alternative channel to Facebook have become almost as important Meanwhile analysis by smartphone platform shows that iPhone users continue to have a higher propensity to install and use apps than do Android users. Android skews young and lower income, and messaging apps in particular start as a means to save money (though they are now much more than that), but even in this category iPhone users appear to care more