Sky’s revenue growth under Comcast appears to have accelerated since it last reported as an independent company, largely driven by sports rights expansion in Italy, which also drove bumper subscriber growth in Q3 2018 


Sky UK likely enjoyed a steadier performance, helped by accelerating high speed adoption, a price rise in April, increased international sales, and improving premium channel adoption on third-party platforms


Comcast expects continued acceleration into 2019, with profitability taking a hit from increased sports rights in Italy in H1, but this is more than compensated for by reduced English Premier League rights costs in H2
 

Vodafone’s revenue trends took another step backwards this quarter (down almost 3% on our estimates) with its strongest markets (UK and Germany) weakening unexpectedly


The reiteration of their financial guidance and commitment to cost-reduction provides some reassurance although nothing in the results provides grounds for optimism; churn is not really falling and is not correlated to convergence

With the UK mobile market delivering its strongest growth in 7 years last quarter, these results may be a precursor for a more challenging outlook with Vodafone citing pressure from business pricing and out-of-bundle limits, and the outlook for RPI-linked price increases diminishing