Rising audiences for Cuatro in a booming TV advertising market have unexpectedly lifted Sogecable earnings in H1 2007, encouraging confidence that Cuatro will achieve breakeven in 2008, if not in 2007
Apple reported strong revenue growth for Q3 2006/07, up 23.8% year on year to $5.41 billion, powered mainly by strong computer sales
Apple has at least revolutionised two aspects of the mobile business: getting customers to queue overnight for a handset, and selling ‘contracts-in-a-box’, neither of which are likely to catch on in Europe
Virgin Media’s Q1 top line results were again mixed, with a growing number of customers leaving as competition intensifies, despite the rebrand to Virgin. But it could have been worse; most higher-spending customers are remaining
iPod revenue (quarterly, year-on-year) declined for the first time. Even though unit sales were up 24% year-on-year, the average iPod price was down 20%. Apple group revenue growth is increasingly dependent on Mac sales and new product launches, like Apple TV (March 2007) and the iPhone (in June 2007)
The spat between Virgin and Sky over cable carriage of Sky basic channels has generated much blogging, mostly supportive of Virgin, although neither party appears to be gaining from the ‘zero sum game’ dispute
With 84,000 net pay-TV additions in 2006, Sogecable resumed subscriber growth, but we expect this pace to decline in 2007 unless Sogecable re-positions on basic and expands distribution from satellite to cable and DSL
Virgin Media’s Q4 results were again mixed – increasing competition is continuing to have a significant effect on net additions but, as yet, most higher ARPU customers are staying put, permitting modest revenue growth
Hostilities between Sky and Virgin have intensified during the course of cable’s re-launch, Sky’s announcement of its pay-DTT plans, and bilateral negotiations over channel carriage fee payments on the satellite and cable platforms
iPod volumes hit a record 21.1 million units sold in the key Christmas quarter, but year-over-year quarterly revenue growth declined again to 18% (from 29%) due to lower prices for all iPods and consumers’ drift to low priced flash memory based players (iPod Shuffle). Apple’s push on the iPhone limits the iPod’s future development and hence this segment’s future revenue growth