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.

In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request

TalkTalk Group’s H1 results saw a disappointing increase in subscriber churn, causing a minor downward revision to revenue and volume guidance for the current financial year

Management is making good progress in reducing costs and the company remains on track to meet its financial guidance for the full year

Customer satisfaction is improving and subscriber volume is expected to stabilise by June 2012. But the strength of competition from BT Retail raises questions about the potential for future growth in revenue and hence cash flow

Openreach has announced large cuts in the prices of some important components of physical infrastructure access (PIA). A further substantial reduction in duct prices is possible as a result of an adjustment by Ofcom to Openreach’s regulatory asset value (RAV)

The reductions are helpful to the economics of bids by altnets such as Fujitsu for government funds to deploy rural next generation access (NGA), and to Virgin Media, as it expands its existing cable network footprint

However, the economics of NGA continue to strike us as challenging and we expect the impact of PIA on BT to be modest due to the remaining potential wholesale revenue, and BT Retail’s ability to use third party PIA-based networks

Advancing its free-to-air TV project, France’s Canal+ is to buy Bolloré TV’s national channels for €465 million to gain (scarce) licences for FTA terrestrial broadcast

Canal+ plans to leverage its library of original programming to attract upscale audiences, neglected by commercial rivals

However, the Vivendi investment case of a 9% return on capital is built on incompatible assumptions about profit margins and market share – to grow the latter in a mature market, a channel needs to sacrifice the former

In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request

In this presentation we show our analysis of trends in UK broadband and telephony to June 2011, based on the published results of the major service providers. This quarter’s edition includes a first look at high speed broadband subscriber volumes, and our analysis of broadband growth in 2010 based on data recently released by Ofcom.

Highlights for the year 2010 include confirmation of our earlier estimate of a sharp increase in residential subscriber growth, and, despite this, the first ever decline in revenue from residential broadband, due to aggressive pricing of broadband/telephony bundles.

Highlights for the 2011 June quarter include broadband subscribers breaching the 20 million mark, a further decline in broadband market growth, continuing strong broadband subscriber growth at BSkyB and BT Retail, the first ever quarterly declines in cable broadband subscribers and LLU lines, and the first increase in BT Wholesale broadband net additions for four and a half years.

Vodafone Europe’s service revenue growth dropped by 0.5ppts to -1.3% in the June quarter, although most of this was due to a sharp MTR cut in the UK

Revenue in Spain was very weak due to a price re-adjustment, but trends elsewhere were broadly positive, with voice minutes growth improving overall

Medium term prospects are good, with MTR cuts fading, competitive performance improving and data growth likely to re-accelerate, but we expect declining growth in Turkey to drive a worse performance in the short term

BT’s plans to deploy next generation access, combined with state-aided rural broadband projects, look set to give almost three quarters of UK households access to high speed broadband by 2016

New wireless technology is a feasible substitute for wireline for some low-end users and in specific areas, but we do not expect it to have a major impact on high speed broadband deployment

BT Retail and Virgin Media will in effect move significant numbers of their customers onto high speed broadband, but without significant price reductions we believe that, even by 2016, consumers’ reluctance to pay more will result in two-thirds of households remaining on lower speed options

This report provides our annual assessment and forecasts for recorded music sales and music publishing revenues, which engage all four of the ‘majors’ – Universal Music Group (UMG), EMI, Sony and Warner Music Group (WMG). In the context of the ongoing physical-to-digital transition of music consumption, retailing and buying, documented in the report, we estimate a 10% decline in recorded music sales to $18.4 billion in 2010, the sixth consecutive year of decline. We also project further overall declines in our forecast period to 2015. The recorded music sales decline has fed into music publisher revenues via mechanicals, and will continue to do so. In addition, the recession of 2008-09 continues to feed through to music publisher revenues via the lagged distribution of royalties. Thus, for 2010, we estimate that the global total fell by 3.1% in 2010 to $5.6 billion, and project an overall return to modest growth in 2012. Together, our analysis of recorded music and music publishing provides an industry-level context to evaluate the likely development of the majors themselves, bearing in mind that shifts in market share and currency movements will continue to differentiate their relative performances.