The distribution business had a strong year, marred by a longer than usual Christmas hangover in the last quarter, but the early signs for the new financial year are promising
Vodafone achieved its 2006/07 full year targets on revenue and profitability, with solid revenue growth (underlying about 2% in Europe) but dropping margins (by around 2pps in Europe)
Growth in Q1 2007 for the aggregate non-Vodafone European mobile operations was 4.2%, a slight decline from 4.7% last quarter (Vodafone reports its results next week)
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
Scottish Media Group’s decision to sell its Virgin Radio business has been prompted by the need to pay down group debt and the management’s decision to refocus on the turnaround of its ITV service. This report outlines our views on the management pronouncements made on the success and performance of Virgin Radio and, therefore, its value to investors. We consider that management has exaggerated the potential value of this asset to investors
UK broadband market growth fell to 3.2 million net additions in 2006 from 3.8 million in 2005. With 47% of UK households already on broadband, new entrant unbundlers (BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse) are racing against the clock of a maturing market to sign up customers
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
Vodafone’s underlying service revenue growth in its core European markets again improved, to 3.0% from 2.3% in the previous quarter, although most of this improvement was due to the impact from termination rate cuts being lower
Carphone Warehouse’s core distribution business was firm, showing no signs of being harmed by Vodafone withdrawing its new contract business in the UK