Device makers regained their mojo at this year’s MWC, with phones a crucial route to generative AI becoming a daily habit.
AI software has improved and proliferated, but limited differentiation leaves room for consolidation as a competitive funding crunch looms.
Unanswered questions loom large, but won't dim AI's potential.
While altnets continued their strong expansion in 2023, a slowdown in 2024 is looking very likely, with financing drying up due to tougher financial conditions and disappointing operating performances from some.
Consolidation is the obvious answer, and the altnets could consolidate into a pure wholesaler (via CityFibre), a retail/wholesale player, or could be absorbed into VMO2/nexfibre.
Which of these routes is taken, and how quickly, will have a profound impact on the structure of the industry, and all players should be careful what they wish for, with long-term outcomes hard to reliably predict in such a complex marketplace.
According to press reports, VMO2 is in early stage discussions over buying TalkTalk’s consumer retail broadband business, but not its wholesale business, which may leave the latter in limbo.
There is strong industrial logic to the deal, with a sub-brand useful, and significant synergies from moving the TalkTalk base to VMO2’s network, with the latter gain at Openreach’s expense.
There would be major regulatory hurdles for the deal, with concerns on both a retail and wholesale level, and particularly the future of the altnets, with any deal likely having to protect this.
Sony PlayStation’s next CEO will have hard decisions to make: compete against a resurgent multiplatform Microsoft, or retreat and defend an increasingly rickety PlayStation console model.
New gaming hardware will have an outsize influence in the year ahead, giving gamers unprecedented choice, starting with XR headsets and continuing to a likely new Nintendo Switch.
YouTube’s foray into browser-based games will be the service to watch in 2024. If successful, streaming services, including Netflix, will be on track to become heavyweight game platforms.
The value of the domestic rights of major European leagues is falling due to the declining competitive intensity between broadcasters.
The Premier League’s new rights deal extends its lead, while Serie A faces a 10% fall in revenue next season and Ligue 1 struggles to get a flat fee.
Sky and DAZN have cemented their status as Europe’s top football broadcasters. Amazon has refocused to one game per week.
A strong UK labour market, with record low unemployment but historically high vacancies, has supported growth in the recruitment industry, though trends may be peaking as we reach unknown territory. These trends play out in the recruitment market before they become apparent in the labour market
Despite the fragmentation of the online recruitment listings marketplace, Indeed is well-placed to dominate this space due to its increased scale and aggressive investment strategy
Both Google and Facebook have announced their intention to move into the recruitment listings sphere, which may have consequences not only for classified expenditure but further up the value chain with the agency model. However, both giants have attempted to move into online classifieds before, with little demonstrable success
UK residential communications market revenue growth dipped to 2.1% in Q3. While volume growth continued to decline, the main driver was weakening ARPU growth, which was partly caused by price rise timing effects but there was also an underlying contribution
Longer term, slowing market volume growth has contributed to the market revenue growth drop over the last year, but slowing ARPU growth is also playing its part, and maintaining ARPU growth is becoming a major challenge for the operators given the discounting required to win and retain customers
Looking forward, price rise timings will continue to cause short-term revenue growth fluctuations, but the main long-term factor will be the trajectory of subscriber ARPU, and whether any growth in this can be sustained
Mobile service revenue growth dipped this quarter but this was likely entirely due to the predictable (and predicted) impact of the abolition of EU roaming surcharges. On an underlying basis, growth improved
BT/EE extended its lead in both service revenue and contract subscriber growth terms. EE’s substantial investments in network quality and customer service have driven returns to scale, and its multi-brand approach is working well
Contrasting with the returns to scale seen at EE, TalkTalk’s MVNO has suffered the reverse of this, unable to break-even despite peaking at just shy of 1 million customers, and deciding to retreat to an agency model. Sky Mobile is performing respectably well in context, but may be headed for scale issues itself
BARB data indicates that the amount of average daily TV set viewing to linear TV channels is continuing to fall: the pie is shrinking. Just under 20% of TV set usage so far in 2017 is to non-linear activity, and viewing to SVOD services and YouTube is likely to account for most of this growth in 'unmatched' viewing
The pie is shrinking faster amongst younger audiences: just under one third of TV set usage is 'unmatched' now for 16-34s. However 35+ unmatched use is growing at a faster rate than 16-34 unmatched use in 2017
Within this smaller pie, the PSB channels continue to hold share of viewing against pay channels. Within the PSBs, ITV and the ITV digital channel family have gained most share so far this year, although BBC1 is having a strong autumn in spite of the loss of Great British Bake Off to C4
The recent highly-publicised boxing match between UFC superstar Conor McGregor and boxing great Floyd Mayweather has not only broken UK records, but signified the rising status of the UFC into the mainstream of sports
The UFC has grown hugely in recent years. Its competition structure, appeal to younger audiences, and savvy marketing make it attractive to pay-TV broadcasters and an enticing proposition for Millennial and Gen-Z viewers
However, with this heightened status, it may be beginning to face the same pitfalls as boxing and other sports, including a rapidly rising median viewing age and the pull of pay-per-view blockbuster events