Meta led the pack of tech results in Q2 with 22% growth and championing a suite of generative AI products; should these falter, Meta can recalibrate by devoting more of its AI infrastructure to core user and ad products. 

AI and the metaverse give Meta an uncertain shot at a new platform play, leveraging its enormous user base and bringing developers back into the fold. 

Reality Labs is still burning cash, but a collaboration with Ray-Ban offers a path to usable head-mounted displays, and could get Meta there faster than Apple’s cutting-edge approach. 

The UK’s choice of policy for rebalancing the relationships between news publishers and tech platforms is on the agenda of the CMA’s Digital Markets Unit for 2025. The UK is expected to steer clear of the pitfalls of Canada’s news bargaining regime, which led Meta to block news, crashing referrals.

In the UK, Google’s relationships with news publishers are much deeper than referrals, including advertising and market-specific voluntary arrangements that support a robust supply of journalism, and dovetail with the industry’s focus on technology (including AI) and distribution.

The rise of generative AI has also ignited the news industry’s focus on monetising the use of its content in LLMs. AI products could threaten the prominence, usage and positive public perceptions of journalism—this might require progress in journalism’s online infrastructure, supported by public policy.

Google has permanently shelved the 2025 deadline for removing all third-party cookies from Chrome, but publishers should prepare for much higher rates of users blocking cookies. 

The online economy is still moving towards more privacy and user controls on the major platforms, with Android the next target for the Privacy Sandbox. 

Regulators are increasingly setting the terms online, limiting Google's freedom of movement, and with the conflict between competition and user privacy protections defining the next phase of the internet.

Service revenue growth was broadly flat at 1.7% as improvements in Germany offset weaknesses in Italy.

The impact of price increases has been mixed, with subscriber losses dulling their upside, and the mixed picture looks set to continue into Q2.

The market continues to be challenging with elevated competition at the low end, pressure from some regulators to increase network coverage, and a somewhat soft EBITDA outlook.

On 4 June 2024, Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media and Telecoms 2024 & Beyond Conference with Deloitte, sponsored by Barclays, Salesforce, the Financial Times, and Adobe. 

With over 580 attendees and over 40 speakers from the TMT sector, including leading executives and industry experts, the conference focused on how new technologies, regulation and infrastructure will impact the future of the industry. 

This is the edited transcript of Session Four, covering: artificial intelligence, the new phase of online advertising, and closing remarks. Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.

On 4 June 2024, Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media and Telecoms 2024 & Beyond Conference with Deloitte, sponsored by Barclays, Salesforce, the Financial Times, and Adobe.

With over 580 attendees and over 40 speakers from the TMT sector, including leading executives and industry experts, the conference focused on how new technologies, regulation and infrastructure will impact the future of the industry.

This is the edited transcript of Session One, covering: the evolution of streaming models, and public service broadcasting in the digital age. Videos of the presentations will be available on the conference website.

With traffic from Facebook and X to news publishers’ destinations in decline, distribution is shifting to other platforms where they have more control, such as feeds served on WhatsApp and newsletters on LinkedIn

There is no one silver bullet platform to replace Facebook, on which certain publishers became overly reliant, or X. News publishers are trying out a myriad of platforms to see which work best for the specific audiences and use-cases they are cultivating

WhatsApp and LinkedIn are still platforms that are mediated for news publishers, so risks remain. These platforms have highly differentiated alignment with the needs of enterprises producing journalism
 

Big news publishers are pursuing licensing deals with AI companies, chiefly OpenAI. Not all publishers will see a substantial return; while some news may be important for training AI models, not all publisher content will be

Litigation is a threat point when negotiations stall (see the New York Times), but the copyright status of Large Language Models (LLMs) is uncertain. In the UK, there has been no government intervention (on copyright or otherwise) that could facilitate licensing 

Publishers’ bargaining position is strongest when it comes to up-to-date material that could be important in powering some AI consumer products. They should seek deals to support their journalism, while bearing in mind the risk that new products may get between them and their readers

 

Service revenue took a dip in Q4 to 1.5% as a waning price rise impact in the UK combined with the loss of positive one-offs in Germany.

We expect growth to slow further through 2024 as many operators implement lower index-linked price rises which are also coming under increasing regulatory scrutiny.

Vodafone has made progress on its turnaround plan—striking deals for its Italian and Spanish units—but it is not yet out of the woods, with ongoing challenges in Germany and approval still uncertain in the UK.

Many telcos are surprisingly advanced in exploring GenAI opportunities, mainly in gleaning cost efficiencies in managing their complex systems, but it may also provide a revenue boost.

European telco CEOs made a heartfelt—if not entirely convincing—plea for regulatory/policy help via a ‘new deal’ to help support future investment, highlighting a genuine lack of price/investment balance in European telecoms.

The most convincing specific regulatory/policy solution is in-market consolidation, with other steps either less effective, or unlikely to happen, but a general shift in regulatory attitude could prove helpful in many small ways.