The pandemic years boosted many businesses selling services on subscription in the UK: work-from-home gave people more time and money to widen the services they enjoyed in the home, such as gaming, entertainment and music, also boosting engagement with trusted news

The cost-of-living crisis dented the number of subscribers to OTT SVOD and news services in Q2 2022. Broadband and mobile are must-have; bundles of services (e.g. Sky’s pay-TV and broadband or mobile) are more resilient; yearly and multi-year contracts prevent churn relative to monthly contracts; and services that cater to passions (e.g. football) are always need-to-have

Subscription (or supporter) media and news services reaped the demand for trusted news through the pandemic, but now face a tough challenge to their toplines from the economic downturn—and also to transition to a sustainable business model for media audiences, while advertisers are also feeling the heat

Apple's announcement that the iPhone 14 will be eSIM-only in the US paves the way for it to ultimately enter the market for mobile services there, although that will require the co-operation of at least one mobile operator.

This should be a red flag for UK operators who have been obliged to facilitate a form of eSIMs already and are likely to be obliged to go a few steps further in the coming years.

Policymakers need to think very carefully about the pros and cons of such a move by Apple—the industry cannot afford to give Apple a slice of its much-called-upon pie.

Mobile service revenue growth rose to its highest level in over ten years (+4.5%) as a result of the operators’ higher-than-inflation price rises.

BT/EE fared best with broadly-applied, sizeable increases and robust churn while H3G’s more modest increases and later timing led to just a minor pickup in its service revenue growth—in spite of continued strong performance on the subscriber side.

There are some early signs of an increase in consumer bargain-hunting and some payment challenges, with B2B robust for now but with an increasingly rocky outlook.

Revenue decline accelerated in Q2 as the cost-of-living crisis appears to be impacting UK sales, but profits remained strong thanks to last summer’s Continental sports rights reset

In Italy, DAZN will return on Sky’s platform just in time for the new Serie A football season, filling a key gap in its aggregation strategy

Looking forward, thanks to its enhanced profitability, Sky has the flexibility to respond to the economic downturn using pricing and content

VMO2 struggled to fully capitalise on its price increases this quarter, with much of the benefits absorbed by retention discounts and tariff pressure.

EBITDA growth of 4% is nonetheless a solid result in a challenging market and guidance looks achievable, albeit not as easily as it previously did.

The opaque nature of the relationship with the new network company makes it difficult to establish whether VMO2 is capitalising on the current glut of speculative infrastructure investment, or is at risk of being a victim of it.

BT Group’s revenue growth surged in Q1 to 1%, the first time it has been positive in five years, with a stronger than expected boost from the April price rises partially offset by the Virgin Mobile MVNO loss.

EBITDA growth, however, actually dipped to 2%, with little operating leverage due to cost pressures, although the company is still very confident in its full year EBITDA guidance (which implies 4% growth).

BT is far from immune to macroeconomic pressures, with pressure on costs, corporate revenue and signs of a sharp dip in broadband market growth, but it is well placed to deal with them given strong growth at Consumer and Openreach.

Growth is crucial for Vodafone’s leverage but remains elusive and the company’s ambition to grow European revenues this year looks challenging

Exacerbating revenue pressure in Germany and the loss of the VMO2 MVNO will weigh heavily in H2 and cost inflation will eat into any margin gains

Deal-making is not yet materialising with considerable question marks remaining over regulatory approval for mobile consolidation, a necessarily more open mind on action on Vantage, and plans to shift fibre investment off balance sheet. Vodafone promises more concrete developments with H1 results

With the cost-of-living crisis expected to worsen over the coming months, the telecoms operators must walk a fine line—support customers but protect their financial performance in the face of a likely recession and rising costs.

We are likely to see weakness on the B2B side and consumers will look for ways to reduce out-of-bundle spend, seek retention discounts and spin down to lower speed tiers and data bundles, but we expect that dropping services completely will hold limited appeal.

Proactive retention activity and promotional pricing is likely to pay off more than slashing headline prices, and will help to avoid a damaging price war—a far bigger risk to their revenues than spin-down.

The cost-of-living crisis facing the UK economy notched up a gear in April, with a shock 9% CPI reading due to the home energy price cap increase; the May reading of 9.1% implies ongoing real income declines. The World Bank warns of the largest commodity shock in 50 years as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—with prices to remain elevated for 2-3 years

After the pandemic widened social inequality between B2B workers able to accumulate savings through work from home (WFH) and B2C workers who had to continue commuting, the home energy and petrol price crisis is again disproportionately impacting low-income households that cannot WFH

While the UK could find itself in a mild technical recession in Q2 and Q3 2022, base effects from the lockdowns in the first half of 2021 are certain to produce a higher annual level of GDP for 2022, with the OECD forecasting 3.6% growth, although it also predicts GDP will stagnate in 2023, with significant risks to the downside from further energy supply disruptions

Mobile service revenue nudged into growth territory for the first time since the pandemic as a resurgent mobility boost combined with returning roaming revenues.

Q2 looks set to deliver a more convincing growth filip with inflation-linked price rises boosting by 2-5ppts, and a stronger roaming bounce for seasonal reasons.

The picture is not entirely rosy, however, with already discernible B2B headwinds and inevitable consumer bargain-hunting on the horizon.