Karen noted that Vodafone’s earnings growth last year was boosted by unusually favourable currency movements and a one-off gain. She added that the company would struggle to obtain its 1-4 per cent growth target next year “with their cash cow, Germany, struggling as it is."

Abi said "The results represent the first quarter as a fully combined company and present significant red flags for the firm moving forward."

She said that the declining users on Facebook are likely to have battered the click-through rates for Buzzfeed sites, as well as those all important ad eyeballs and added that although Buzzfeed posted hikes in both advertising and content revenue, she said this was likely attributed to the recent acquisition of Complex, which is a leader in engagement with 18-24 year old men. Watson said she was “uncertain” this could continue into next year once it becomes fully combined into the group.

Karen said “However at pains they are to insist they are supportive, it’s yet another sizeable shareholder lining up to pressure Read to deliver.”

Karen said Etisalat’s unexpected move came at “a crucial time” for Mr Read and the UAE company would not have swooped unless bosses believed “they can have a lot of influence."

Karen said e&’s stake amounted to “another shareholder to add to the pressure on Read . . . at a crucial time for him."

“A company like that doesn’t take a sizeable minority position unless they think they can have a lot of influence and I don’t think that they would buy a company like Vodafone unless they thought that momentum was about to change quite considerably."

Julian said It does not sound like prices for consumers will increase as a direct result of this deal, at least not initially. BT has said that customers who get BT Sport directly from BT will receive Discovery+ as part of their existing subscriptions."

"Of course, the combined entity will remain a major rival to Sky, but they are also important partners to each other, and that will ensure too. In February, BT announced that its cross-wholesale TV content deal with Sky will 'in principle" be extended beyond 2030. "This signals that a return to aggressive bidding on premium sports rights is very unlikely, meaning there is less likelihood of higher programming costs needing to be passed onto consumers."

Francois said "They don't seem to have made many errors so far. We have seen them buying a little package, then buying a bigger package, careful to not feed price inflation for rights in Europe."

Gareth said “If it is not No. 1, it’s certainly in the top three game franchises of all time, and the reason for that is there are so many releases. Every year they change the number on the box, put a new player on the front and it’s pretty much the same under the hood.”

Niamh said “The camera company designation could be seen as a bit of a gimmick really, but it is a way of signalling to users and advertisers that they are trying to do something a little bit more creative with augmented reality."