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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Julian Aquilina was quoted in The Times on Premier League on the defence, he said “When Facebook tried to buy cricket TV rights in India, it put in a huge bid and everyone thought it was really serious. It didn’t get them, but Facebook would have wanted those rights because that would have driven a huge increase in Indian users to the service. In the UK, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon don’t have this problem.”
Joseph Evans was quoted in The Times on Get lost, Alexa: most Britons shun digital assistants over spying fears, he said “The privacy concerns stem from the fact that these devices are constantly listening out for the ‘wake’ word. You have to trust Amazon or Google will be respectful of your privacy, but also that there are no bugs in the software. We’ve seen instances of Alexa waking by mistake and recording everything that a user says.”
Claire Enders was quoted in the Financial Times on Rupert Murdoch’s News UK takes a potshot at BBC radio, Claire said “He has an absolute ideological objection to public service broadcasting in general and the BBC in particular.”
Smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home accelerated their prodigious rate of adoption in Q4 2018, and we expect they will soon be in 20% of UK homes
Amazon and Google price devices low to drive adoption to mass-market levels and win the race to own the home, in contrast to Apple’s profit-making strategy for its speaker
Echo’s main strategic benefits to Amazon are the scope for data collection and the intelligence it supports, and gatekeeping partners’ access to customers
Matti Littunen was quoted in the Financial Times on Facebook: false friends "Great fakes, by definition, are invisible. No one can really quantify fake Facebook accounts — advertised online at $7 per pop. Necessary privacy safeguards could foster a proliferation of fakes, by impeding online identity checks. But there will always be one metric advertisers can rely on." as Matti Littunen, of Enders Analysis, points out: "Sales directly generated by Facebook ads. If these flag, it is time to worry about fakes"
Sky’s revenue growth under Comcast appears to have accelerated since it last reported as an independent company, largely driven by sports rights expansion in Italy, which also drove bumper subscriber growth in Q3 2018
Sky UK likely enjoyed a steadier performance, helped by accelerating high speed adoption, a price rise in April, increased international sales, and improving premium channel adoption on third-party platforms
Comcast expects continued acceleration into 2019, with profitability taking a hit from increased sports rights in Italy in H1, but this is more than compensated for by reduced English Premier League rights costs in H2
The volume of retail sales (excluding fuel) rose 2.6% for the year 2018, thanks to improved consumer sentiment on the back of the Royal Wedding, FIFA World Cup and warmer weather. With no special events in 2019, the environment for retailing will be bleaker, with or without no-deal Brexit
December retail sales volumes rose 1.7% year-on-year, less than half the pace of November, as consumers shifted spend to Black Friday/Cyber Monday. We predict the trend will amplify in 2019, as consumers increasingly target their spending on discounted products, with direct implications for the timing and nature of advertising
The value of retail sales (excluding fuel) was up 4% in 2018 as a whole, masking the tale of woe on the high street. Offline sales fell 1%, while online sales boomed, growing 14% in value, a structural trend for 2019
With the UK perhaps Netflix’s most valuable market outside the US—home to a stellar production sector—the streaming service is escalating its foray into local production, opening a content hub in London and moving from co-productions to direct commissions
As UK content completely dominates UK video viewing outside of the SVODs, to expand subscription reach Netflix is endeavouring to become an alternative to the PSBs’ entertainment output; this local spend is efficient given the universality and worldwide appetite for British content
With a growing proportion of local content expenditure now coming from Netflix and other SVODs, there are ramifications for both broadcasters and producers—loss of viewing, potential market pressure, increased competition for premium content and hesitancy around their own SVOD plans—along with implications for the cultural landscape
Vodafone’s revenue trends took another step backwards this quarter (down almost 3% on our estimates) with its strongest markets (UK and Germany) weakening unexpectedly
The reiteration of their financial guidance and commitment to cost-reduction provides some reassurance although nothing in the results provides grounds for optimism; churn is not really falling and is not correlated to convergence
With the UK mobile market delivering its strongest growth in 7 years last quarter, these results may be a precursor for a more challenging outlook with Vodafone citing pressure from business pricing and out-of-bundle limits, and the outlook for RPI-linked price increases diminishing