European mobile service revenue growth worsened slightly in Q2, dropping to -1.2% after three consecutive quarters at -0.8%. Southern Europe significantly outperformed the North, reversing the regional trend of recent years

EU roaming rate cuts and the increase in SIM-only subscriptions were the two main negative, albeit temporary, factors with the former particularly impacting northern European operators with heavy roaming exposure and the latter more varied in its impact across the EU5

Mobile service revenue growth was thus quite robust given these factors, helped by price firming in a number of markets. Looking forward, while the negative factors are likely to continue in the short-term they will drop out in two years in the case of roaming cuts, and SIM-only, whose impact is mostly profit-neutral to operators, will also reach an equilibrium in due course, and the market's overall resilience is encouraging

The UK retail market for digital movies has shown steady growth, but has not offset the decline in physical sales. While iTunes remains the UK market leader, Sky is clearly driving the growth with its Buy & Keep offering, backed up with the reassurance of physical product.

However, a move away from the collector mentality alongside the growth of a subscription mentality will affect long term prospects. This is not helped by the consumer proposition for digital retail, which remains disjointed, lacks inter-device operability and a clear consumer benefit.

Without co-ordinated efforts and investment from the studios, content owners and retailers to resolve these issues, we believe the opportunity for digital video retail in the UK is limited. Even with that, the EST market may never be as profitable as the DVD home video market.

Amazon will test three possible features of their drone delivery system in the UK, which could make this novel shipping solution for small packages viable

When it launches, Prime Air will be limited to a catchment area of 2.3 million homes in the UK, with further exclusions for no-go areas for drones like airports and urban areas

Prime Air’s UK pilot will help the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) craft the rules for future drone delivery by retailers

Both the commercial and BBC radio sectors generally seem to be in good shape, with radio listening also appearing robust. However, this masks a steep decline among younger adults that shows no sign of slowing down

With radio content available at the swipe of a finger, the linear schedule becomes less relevant, and the challenge broadcasters face is to create online hooks for the broadcast output

News Corp’s acquisition of TalkSPORT will open up new business opportunities as well as consumer engagement across The Sun and TalkSPORT and may prove an important milestone for the Sun brand

Google’s recent product updates and developer conference announcements aim for as many users on as many platforms and devices as possible – a return to strategic form

The company has a dual approach: using Android as a mobile trend-setter while also devising new ways for users and developers on other platforms to use Google services

The reach provided by these initiatives will help Google’s machine learning algorithms to better understand and predict user intent – the cornerstone of the company’s ad business

Amazon’s newly launched open video hosting service, Video Direct, will appeal to creators of ‘professional’ videos by offering them a new platform and monetisation options

Amazon’s attractiveness to video creators resides mainly in the prospect of earning a portion of subscription fees from millions of Prime members

While Video Direct might not become a huge business for creators, this move cements Amazon as a media platform and risks hurting YouTube

Google Home will compete against Amazon’s Echo in the contest to supply voice-activated home hubs to US homes

Google claims Home is better at voice-based search due to its superior capabilities; pricing is unknown, but is likely to be at par with Echo ($179)

Prime, Fire devices and media services are competitive advantages for Amazon in the US that will make it hard for Google Home to succeed there

Consumer book sales look unusually resilient in the context of the extreme changes in other print media sectors, newspapers and magazines, over the past decade

Ebook and ecommerce sales have offset the high street sales decline, although the declining number of retail outlets casts a long shadow over the future of discovery

New options for authors, particularly self-publishing ebooks, threaten the existing funnel of authors to publishers, but could also be a new source of talent

While internet and device penetration among younger age groups are approaching saturation, the over 55s have seen an explosion in smartphone adoption, up 83% year-on-year, expanding opportunities for monetisation

More than 50% of ecommerce transactions are now through mobile. Smartphones widen the scope for anytime anywhere mcommerce events and larger-screened phones and tablets facilitate high value transactions

Internet advertising continues to grow quickly, display faster than search and classifieds. Online advertising spend in H2 2015 grew 14% year-on-year to just over £2 billion and the rise of mobile ad spend is dramatic

At present, Sky exclusively holds all pay-TV domestic live rights to Germany’s top football league. The 2017-2021 rights auction will conclude in early June. It contains a new soft ‘no single buyer’ clause referring solely to online rights

Sky’s real threat comes from potential bids for the main TV packages by deep-pocketed telecom or digital platforms. This could see Sky losing games and shouldering significant cost increases

We think Sky’s German operations will break even by fiscal 2017. Beyond this, profitability is heavily dependent on the auction’s outcome. If it were to retain all live rights, Sky could afford to increase Bundesliga costs by up to 40% over the four-year period. Anything beyond this would lead to Sky making losses