News Corp will split publishing out of its business by creating a company to include newspapers in the US, UK and Australia as well as book publisher HarperCollins News Corp revenue growth has for some time been driven by explosive growth in cable network programming revenues, with slower revenue growth in film, TV, satellite TV and publishing The structural decline of print-based businesses is the main reason cited for the split. However, the Dow Jones and WSJ, both serving a B2B market, will be at the heart of the new publishing company’s value
In this report we show the findings of our 2012 UK mobile user survey. The report is a wide ranging analysis of the mobile market based on our consumer research, focusing on the competitive landscape among the mobile operators and smartphone manufacturers, and the changing consumer behaviour that has and will continue to impact the market
In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request.
EE’s subscriber growth in Q1 was solid enough given a market slowdown, but disappointing given T-Mobile’s Full Monty tariff launch. With O2’s ‘On and On’ launched in late March, the outlook for subscriber growth will be tougher in the rest of 2012
Service revenue growth was more encouraging, improving by 1.5 ppts after a disappointing Q4. This appears to have been largely volume driven (i.e. existing users using their handsets more), which is encouraging for the operators yet to report Q1 figures (i.e. Vodafone and O2)
The company’s main competitive weapon going forward should be the quality of its network – even post-consolidation it will have more 3G sites than any other operator and may be able to use its 1800MHz spectrum to gain a head-start in 4G. However, communicating that both brands have an outstanding network, without encouraging subscribers to migrate to the lower-priced T-Mobile, will be problematic
Sky Deutschland has renewed its broadcast rights contract with the Bundesliga until 2017, removing the most important source of uncertainty for investors and consumers, albeit at the cost of a 77% jump in the fee from 2013/14
Combined with Sky’s new exclusive channels, high definition offer and on-demand services, the contract will sustain subscriber growth, but ARPU will only rise slowly
Although we forecast Sky to meet its EBITDA breakeven target in 2013, cash flow should stay negative until 2015 due to rising spend on receivers
The London Olympics promise to be a major success for both the free-to-air broadcast licensees and the leading pay-TV platforms as a result of co-operative deals being forged between them
Recent distribution agreements with Sky provide the BBC and Eurosport with a massively bigger window to showcase their credentials in in-depth sports coverage and new technologies, especially 3D
For Sky, and assuming VMed in due course, there exist a number of potential indirect commercial benefits, as the message is sent out loud and clear that there is no better place to go for London Olympics free-to-air coverage than the pay-TV platforms
In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request.
Mobile operators, services and handset makers are diverging – they all come to the MWC but have increasingly little to say to each other as their businesses move in very different directions
In the context of -5% European mobile revenue growth, the MNOs at the MWC were a sober bunch, focusing on industrial services, defensive moves around messaging, and a (not unreasonable) plea to regulators for some relief
As competition in Android intensifies between hundreds of black plastic rectangles, the picture for OEMs looks tough but Google’s failure to make Android work well for developers may also start to bite, leaving an opening for Nokia and Windows Phone
The launch of the fourth mobile network operator in France has so far met with dramatic success, gaining around 1.5 million subscribers in the first month, driven by rock-bottom pricing and a clever mass media PR campaign
Its tariffs are, however, so low that it is very hard to see how they are sustainable in the longer term. In the short term, Free’s economics are boosted by asymmetric voice and text termination rates that result in other operators’ customers effectively subsidising Free subscribers by €5 to €10 a month
This arbitrage is very likely to disappear over the next two years, but Free Mobile can increase its prices when this occurs. Its challenge will be to acquire a critical mass of subscribers before this point, and to retain them thereafter
The launch of Netflix in the UK and Ireland has ignited the debate on the threat from over-the-top video to pay-TV services from Sky, Virgin Media and BT
Unlike in the US, Netflix’s UK prospects and those of competitors such as Lovefilm, are fundamentally limited, given the availability of low priced pay-TV with strong on-demand components included for free
The impact of Netflix on the UK pay-TV industry is therefore likely to be even smaller than the (hard to discern) effect it has had in the US