Enders Analysis co-hosted its annual conference, in conjunction with BNP Paribas and Deloitte, in London on 19 January 2012. The event featured talks by 13 of the most influential figures in media and telecoms, and was chaired by Sir Peter Bazalgette. An edited transcript of notes taken during the speaker presentations follows.

The speakers were Sir Martin Sorrell (CEO, WPP), Glen Moreno (Chairman, Pearson), Martin Morgan (CEO, DMGT), David Levin (CEO, UBM), Dan Cobley (MD, Google UK & Ireland), Mike Pocock (CEO, Yell), Vittorio Colao (CEO, Vodafone), Charles Dunstone (Chairman, Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk Group), Stephen Carter (President, Alcatel-Lucent EMEA), the Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt MP (Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport), Neil Berkett (CEO, Virgin Media), Liv Garfield (CEO, Openreach) and Ed Richards (CEO, Ofcom).

Facebook’s IPO prospectus confirms that the social network is an internet colossus, with 845 million users worldwide and $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011

Growth potential in display advertising, which accounts for the majority of revenue, seems limited with increasing mobile substitution in major ad markets and future user expansion largely in lower yielding countries

There is significant potential to increase income from payments and other businesses beyond social games, but the company’s strategy is unknown at this point

VMed’s Q4 results were again mixed, with underlying cash flow growth hit by high capital expenditure primarily relating to accelerating TiVo box installations

But this strong take up of next generation TV, and real progress at the Mobile and Business divisions, give us confidence that the company’s strategy is working

Management guidance of further cash flow growth from the second half of 2012 is credible, though we continue to expect underlying growth to be limited

Google’s UK revenue grew 23% to £676 million in Q4 2011, taking 2011 revenue to £2,525 million, up 20% year-on-year, 2 ppts below our November estimate

Globally, gross revenue rose 25% year-on-year, with mobile and display performing strongly, but rising costs pulled net revenue growth down to 8%

Our growth forecasts for Google’s UK revenue remain unchanged; we expect UK internet ad spend to rise from £4.7 billion last year to £5.8 billion by 2013, representing 35% of total advertising, as print continues to fall

The launch of Netflix in the UK and Ireland has ignited the debate on the threat from over-the-top video to pay-TV services from Sky, Virgin Media and BT

Unlike in the US, Netflix’s UK prospects and those of competitors such as Lovefilm, are fundamentally limited, given the availability of low priced pay-TV with strong on-demand components included for free

The impact of Netflix on the UK pay-TV industry is therefore likely to be even smaller than the (hard to discern) effect it has had in the US

Virgin Media’s plan to double the line speed of most of its broadband customers is the latest in a series of moves to retain its position as the leading high speed internet service provider in the face of BT’s deployment of next generation access (NGA)

The move presages further price increases and an upgrade to offers for new cable customers, but is in the first instance about retaining the large existing base of cable customers currently on 10 Mbit/s

The £150 million or so of incremental capex required is small in the context of NGA, but the impact both on cable churn and demand for higher speeds across the wider market is by no means certain

As Phase 1 digital shift from broadcast analogue to digital nears completion, individual platform growth trends have almost flattened out

The most likely area of change in platform trends over the next ten years concerns basic only subscription pay-TV, where we anticipate an overall increase in the total pay-TV base and change in platform balance arising from the introduction of low price basic packages

Phase 2 digital convergence between TV and the internet promises to take many years to reach maturity, and many questions need to be addressed in order to be able to assess its potential impact on the current broadcast TV marketplace over the next ten years.

Facebook is winning the battle for eyeballs and advertising in the internet display arena, with revenues projected to reach $5.3 billion in 2012

By comparison, we expect Google to achieve revenue of $2.5 billion, after traffic acquisition costs, though it remains the king of internet advertising, due to its dominance of search

Increasing advertiser demand for scale and performance will make many publishers increasingly reliant on one or both of the internet giants for audience and revenue growth

In this presentation we show our analysis of trends in UK broadband and telephony to September 2011, together with our latest projections for residential broadband subscribers and market shares to 2016. Highlights for the 2011 September quarter include accelerating growth in the number of subscribers to high speed broadband, and the continuing increase in market share of BT Retail and BSkyB at the expense of virtually all other players. This quarter’s edition includes a look at high speed broadband pricing, and our take on the new guidelines on broadband advertising.

Although we continue to expect broadband subscriber growth to drop, we expect growth to be supported by increasing adoption among older and/or lower income householders, who are becoming more aware of the benefits of going online. We have also increased our residential market share projection for BT Retail, which has gained real momentum over the past year, with brand strength among late adopters and effective marketing of high speed broadband both having an impact.

Spotify has just passed the 2 million subscriber mark in Europe and the US, and could reach 2.5 million by the end of 2011

Smartphone adoption and partnerships with MNOs and ISPs have proven a key driver of subscription in Europe for Spotify, which lacks a telecoms partner in the US. We think subscription is profitable

Spotify’s lower usage caps on the freemium tier will help compress total losses in 2011 in relation to the £25 million reported in 2010, despite the US launch