Explosive growth in take-up of smartphones and tablets means that the effective size of the internet will increase by several multiples within the next few years. This transformation in scale comes with a major change in character and operating dynamics, creating new opportunities and revenue streams.
Twitter is unique amongst social apps: it gives new users a blank canvas in which they can (and must) create their own social network reflecting their own interests, hence building an ‘Interest Graph’, but onboarding new users remains a challenge.
Revenue at Twitter is now on a $600 million annual run-rate, scaling rapidly since the introduction of ‘native ads’, and seems set for further growth: the key question is whether it can achieve breakout user growth and mass market scale.
Ofcom has been instructed by the UK government to charge the mobile operators ‘full market value’ for the 2G spectrum they have been using for many years, despite there being no liquid market for the spectrum
Ofcom’s general approach to such an imponderable question is eminently sensible, but we disagree with the detail of their methodology on three key aspects, which makes the current proposed charges over three times too high in our view, effectively charging the industry a one-off tax of £4.5bn
The elevated fee levels are (perhaps) still affordable on their own, but coupled with other recent regulatory decisions the UK is in danger of being seen as a hostile regulatory environment, with negative consequences for future investment levels
France’s Iliad will rekindle broadband subscriber recruitment with its Freebox V6 (router and TV set-top box), and extension of the triple play to include unmetered fixed-to-mobile calls
Freebox V6 is positioned as an innovative premium quasi-PC device including a 250GB PVR, a Blu-ray player, a game console and a web browser, re-establishing Iliad’s technology leadership
Iliad expects that V6 subscribers will be less profitable in the short term than in the medium term, but cumulative free cash flow guidance for the ADSL business remains unchanged for 2010-12
The digital transition is almost complete in France, five years after the launch of DTT. After undergoing an audience share decline, TF1's share is stabilising. In contrast, M6 improved its audience share during the transition. Both groups are likely to remain dominant in the FTA TV market, thanks to the partial withdrawal of public TV from advertising sales
The advertising recovery in 2010 was strong. Thanks to its diversification, M6 is less exposed to the cycle than TF1, which is rebounding more strongly. M6 is also structurally more profitable
Pay-TV platform growth has stalled, with subscription decline at Canal+ somewhat balanced by growth of low cost packages of IPTV providers. Canal+ will benefit from the withdrawal of Orange from premium TV and a new distribution deal with Orange. Combined with the roll out of new set-tops with PVRs, we are moderately optimistic on Canal+ prospects
In this short presentation we show our analysis of trends in UK broadband and telephony to September 2010, based on the published results of the major service providers and Ofcom telephony data. We include our own estimates where reported data is incomplete. This quarter’s edition includes a revision to some historical trends resulting from our own interpretation of BT’s recent adjustment to the volume of unbundled lines.
Highlights in the quarter included exceptionally strong growth in broadband net additions at Sky and the resumption of the long term rate of decline in broadband market growth by volume.
Facebook Messaging adds email, IM and SMS to Facebook messages. Some portion of the social network’s 600+ million users will switch to Facebook for an all in one text-based communications service
Switchers to Facebook Messaging in the US will reduce the display ad revenues of traditional portals, like Yahoo! and Microsoft, which use such tools to drive traffic
Less affected is Google. Some Gmail users will switch, but Google’s core business model is selling search advertising, where it is not challenged by Facebook (yet)
European mobile revenue growth improved by 0.8ppts in Q3 to reach -0.3%, but all of this improvement and more was due to easing regulatory pressures, with underlying growth actually declining marginally
GDP growth continues to improve year-on-year, but in the current low confidence environment underlying mobile revenue growth is not (yet) responding. Smartphone sales are surging, but their net impact on revenue is hard to discern
Looking forward, the regulatory impact is likely to turn negative again for the next few quarters, so some underlying growth catch-up is required for revenue growth to stay at around zero
The decline in UK residential broadband market growth has paused due to accelerating adoption by older householders and increased household formation. We expect 970,000 net additions in 2010 and 20.5 million broadband households by 2015. However we expect growth will continue to decline from 2011 as the impact of the government spending review feeds into consumer confidence and the market becomes increasingly saturated
As BT’s next generation access network is deployed, there is likely to be accelerated improvement in DSL price/performance, with DSL customers migrating to a 40 Mbit/s headline speed as it becomes available. The impact of this is likely to be compounded by Virgin Media up-rating its broadband portfolio from speeds of 10, 20 and 50 Mbit/s to 20, 50 and 100 Mbit/s
In the absence of further consolidation, in market share terms the industry appears set to remain divided into three strategic segments: the ‘big three’, brand extenders, and Sky. We expect residential broadband market revenue (excluding content) to continue to decline gradually, stabilising by 2015 as the impact of market share gain by lower priced ISPs attenuates due to a combination of a maturing market and reduced price differentials caused by NGA
We forecast UK online advertising to grow by 8% CAGR to £5.1 billion by 2014, representing approx. 33% of total advertising spend, overtaking press
Search is the main growth engine, which we predict will reach £3.1 billion in 2014, due to its appeal and value to advertisers as a sales and lead generation tool
Growth in spend on social media and video networks will push online display to just over £1 billion by 2014; whilst classifieds will grow to £840 million