Just three players now account for most French broadband connections: Orange’s DSL market share is closing on 50%, Iliad’s rose to 25% from consolidation with Alice, while SFR’s dropped to 23.7%, with Neuf’s rebrand imminent. Cable remains a minimal presence on broadband
Having acquired national broadcast TV rights for premium content, France Télécom’s Orange TV will launch on satellite on 3rd July and introduce subscription football and film and series services from August, in a first for a major European telecoms incumbent
Canal+ is entering a critical phase of growth following the recent merger with its former rival Télévision Par Satellite (TPS). Vivendi has set short term guidance targets for 2010 of 11.5 million subscriptions, turnover above €5 billion and more than doubling of EBITA from €490 million to over €1 billion. This presentation examines these targets and concludes that Canal+ will fall short of all them. In the best case baseline scenario of least competition from other pay-TV and free-to-air (FTA) services, it projects EBITA in 2010 of just €890 million
French altnet Neuf Cegetel is buying Club Internet from Deutsche Telekom for an estimated €500 million and will overtake its rival Free as the #2 on the DSL market, still way behind Orange
The new consumer data tariffs from Vodafone and Orange in the UK continue the trend towards dramatically lower data prices for high end users, although they are cunningly structured to involve more moderate increases for low end users
Vodafone and Orange are planning to share their 3G networks in the UK, and are looking at potentially sharing their 2G networks in due course