Cable &Wireless Worldwide’s performance for the six months to September was weak but made to look worse by one-offs

Underlying performance continues to be hit by strong competition and loss of voice revenue, but the impact of this has been made worse by underinvestment in data centres and neglect of the wholesale and SME businesses

The outlook for the year to March 2012 is poor, in line with the June warning. Beyond that, further investment in hosting and related capabilities will be necessary, and we continue to expect modest growth

Nokia has launched its comeback with two very solid Windows Phone devices at €420 and €270. Next year Nokia, like Apple, will have handsets with uniquely appealing industrial design. However, Nokia will not launch in the USA until 2012 and needs to add cheaper smartphones to the portfolio

Nokia and Microsoft face a hard struggle in establishing a third mobile app ecosystem. However, it is not impossible (Google has managed it in 18 months) and given more devices and the right execution they could manage it

2012 will be the critical year. We believe that the flaws in the Android proposition mean there remains a real window of opportunity. However, if Apple launches a cut-price iPhone then the market will be turned upside-down, again

Openreach has announced large cuts in the prices of some important components of physical infrastructure access (PIA). A further substantial reduction in duct prices is possible as a result of an adjustment by Ofcom to Openreach’s regulatory asset value (RAV)

The reductions are helpful to the economics of bids by altnets such as Fujitsu for government funds to deploy rural next generation access (NGA), and to Virgin Media, as it expands its existing cable network footprint

However, the economics of NGA continue to strike us as challenging and we expect the impact of PIA on BT to be modest due to the remaining potential wholesale revenue, and BT Retail’s ability to use third party PIA-based networks

In this report we outline the current state and likely development of the war between mobile platforms. We discuss installed bases and activity levels, the key issues facing Apple and Android, including Android fragmentation and Google's acquisition of Motorola, and go on to look at the tablet market and the outlook for RIM, Nokia and Windows Phone.

C&W Worldwide’s performance over the year to March was weak, with the most meaningful metrics showing positive but very low growth

The sharp decline in the mid-market business appears to be over, but price pressure and accelerating loss of ‘traditional’ voice revenue is preventing further progress

Guidance for the year to March 2012 is uninspiring. Beyond that, growing momentum in cloud services and the overseas businesses should generate more significant progress, but organic growth looks set to remain modest

Revenues and profits continue to crash at the directory giant as local and small business expenditure shifts to cheaper online media

We believe Yell’s challenges may be less about share of voice, and more about how to absorb the pace of structural change – and to operate its business effectively from a much lower top-line

Tough conditions in all territories – UK, US, Spain and Latin America – have accelerated structural change, but Yell has some advantages over the start-ups, search algorithms and social networks that surround it

Some of Ofcom’s proposed wholesale charge controls for Openreach fixed access services sound stringent

However, we estimate that the overall financial impact on BT and other players is likely to be very small

We do not expect the proposals to result in changes to many retail prices, but they should tilt the playing field slightly in favour of BT Retail’s competitors, particularly smaller providers of broadband and business services

C&W Worldwide’s performance over the six months to September was strong in terms of cash flow growth, although this was partly due to lower bad debt cost

Revenue decline is easing, but weakness in the mid-market business and reduced public sector spending are weighing on EBITDA

Looking ahead, this should improve somewhat, as the retail mid-market business recovers, but we expect growth in the core business to remain unexciting

Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 operating system is launching with a big bang: ten handsets, eighteen operators, and a massive marketing campaign

The OS itself is positioned firmly in between iPhone and Android in terms of ease-of-use and customisability; it is as fast as the best-in-class but no faster; and its interface is bold but will not be to everybody’s taste

A lack of apps, limited distribution, and expensive handsets will likely limit sales in the short term. Longer term, being late in the game with no truly compelling unique feature will make building a major position very challenging, but not impossible

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