Vodafone’s revenue growth has improved, with core underlying growth rising both relative to the previous quarter and relative to its competitors
Vodafone UK’s new broadband product is not very competitively priced compared to the offers from Carphone Warehouse and Orange, costing £5-10 a month more than the nearest equivalent packages
Fiscal Q1 2007 results show unexpectedly strong subscriber gross additions (14% up on Q1 2006) and a promising start to Sky Broadband in its pursuit of at least 3 million subscribers by December 2010. Management attributes the strong gross subscriber additions to the ‘halo’ effect of its broadband and telephony offer
Growth will likely slow from 2006's impressive levels, but the business is still a very solid core, with volumes, prices and commission levels likely to hold up well for the foreseeable future
As regards TalkTalk, the rate of customer migration onto fully unbundled lines continues to be an issue, but the situation is improving, albeit gradually
The appeal of the ‘free’ offer appears to have survived the serious customer service issues of 2006, but the new marketing campaign will need to boost subscriber growth significantly for it to remain on-track
Under mounting competitive pressure from Sky, NTL needs to reinforce its position in content and has approached ITV about a possible combination
Orange UK’s converged mobile and broadband brands and ‘free’ broadband offer has not proved a big hit with consumers, with Orange reporting just 25,000 DSL net additions for the September quarter, likely to be below 5% market share
In a fit of pique over increasing subsidies, Vodafone UK is dropping Carphone Warehouse (CPW) as a distributor, and moving exclusively to Phones4U with lower subsidy levels and volume guarantees, while Orange is reportedly also considering its position with CPW
Vodafone is taking the first step in implementing its convergence strategy in the UK by buying broadband from BT Wholesale; while we believe the strategy is misguided, Vodafone’s approach is at least cautious
The company is at least unlikely to be losing money on the product, and is perhaps just sensibly testing the water for positive consumer interest in a bundled package from Vodafone
We expect the water to be very cold - results from Orange, NTL and BT suggest continued very low consumer interest in fixed-mobile convergence, and we doubt that Vodafone will fare much better
The prospect of a merger between Scottish Media Group (SMG) and UTV (formerly Ulster Television) provides exactly the positive news the commercial radio sector needs at this time. The merger would bring together two national stations, Virgin Radio and TalkSport, under the same ownership, creating opportunities to increase these stations’ audiences, grow their revenue yields, and improve profitability whilst, at the same time, reducing operational costs by combining their management and sales functions.
Vodafone blamed a harsh competitive environment and the timing of Easter for its low revenue growth in core markets reported this week. Its growth did at least not decline again, although we expect that Vodafone will again prove to be underperforming its competitors as they report their figures over the coming weeks
CPW will also benefit from its partnership with AOL for portal advertising, content and other internet-based applications, relatively small but fast-growing value-added services in which CPW has little experience or market position, which will prove important in terms of both customer retention and margins.
True to pre-launch speculation, BSkyB has entered broadband with a price-cutting bang that will have sent tremors round the rest of the industry.