The UK business (EAUS) is continuing to improve ahead of guidance as expected and its turnround can now be judged a success. Management has announced an aggressive plan to extract synergy from the recently acquired Thus

H3G Group’s H1 2008 results showed static revenue and EBITDA slipping back into negative territory, neither of which bode well for the company’s target of being EBIT positive next year

In our view the potential for synergies from an acquisition of Thus by C&W, though more limited than might be supposed, would still have a significant impact on the combined entity at the EBITDA level

International performance continued to be weak apart from Macau, although well within EBITDA guidance. Turnaround in Jamaica remains a significant challenge

H3G Group’s growth continued to slow in H2 2007, and it is now growing at just 6%, versus 10% 6 months ago, with falling ARPU combining with static subscriber net additions

To encourage investors, TF1 announced continued diversification of group revenues from reliance on the flagship TF1 channel, and an increase in group Ebitda from 16% in 2007 to 20% in ‘4-5 years’. Accelerating audience share decline at the TF1 channel indicates that new programming is also urgently required to maintain TF1’s ‘premium’ for advertisers

TF1, France’s leading free-to-air (FTA) terrestrial broadcaster, has repositioned its channel assets in order to better exploit rapid growth of digital TV, now taken by 44% of households

H3G’s X-Series is not quite as innovative as it was presented to be, given that T-Mobile’s Web ‘n’ Walk is very similar in concept (flat rate data tariffs, 3rd party Internet services) and has been available since June 2005

H3G has extended its deadline for hitting EBITDA breakeven, with this now around 12 months later than its previous forecast, we believe due to management failing to understand the extent of its churn problem 

The Zune Marketplace is no match for the iTunes Store, with a smaller repertory of music and no video to supply the Zune, since Microsoft has announced it will soon sell video for the top-end Xbox 360, around which its ‘home-entertainment’ strategy is based

We figure the costs of switching to the Zune are low, but Microsoft will be lucky to sell 1 million Zunes in the Christmas quarter – if it does, revenue will rise by less than 1%, so the Zune is of limited interest, whether successful or not

International subsidiaries continue to perform solidly