TikTok has been dealt a devastating blow as a US bill has been signed into law forcing owner ByteDance to sell within a year or face its removal from app stores.
The stakes are higher than in 2020—China's opposition to a divestment will make an optimal sale harder to conclude, so all sides must be prepared for a ban.
The TikTok bill introduces extraordinary new powers in the context of the US and China's broad systemic rivalry, though online consumer benefits will be limited.
The German football league has suspended its media rights auction after protests by DAZN over the award of the top package.
DAZN surprised the market by aiming to become the Bundesliga’s primary broadcaster.
The situation in Germany reveals the contradictory impulses weighing on leagues at rights auctions.
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.
The German football league’s rights tender for its 2025-29 cycle is designed to create competitive tension between Sky and DAZN.
Based on precedents and public statements, we would expect Sky to increase coverage and DAZN to scale it down without a head-on bidding battle.
With low international potential, the Bundesliga can only count on its deep fan base to meet competitive pressure from the Premier League.
Device makers regained their mojo at this year’s MWC, with phones a crucial route to generative AI becoming a daily habit.
AI software has improved and proliferated, but limited differentiation leaves room for consolidation as a competitive funding crunch looms.
Unanswered questions loom large, but won't dim AI's potential.
Sony PlayStation’s next CEO will have hard decisions to make: compete against a resurgent multiplatform Microsoft, or retreat and defend an increasingly rickety PlayStation console model.
New gaming hardware will have an outsize influence in the year ahead, giving gamers unprecedented choice, starting with XR headsets and continuing to a likely new Nintendo Switch.
YouTube’s foray into browser-based games will be the service to watch in 2024. If successful, streaming services, including Netflix, will be on track to become heavyweight game platforms.
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Lockdown 1.0 in March-April-May 2020 reduced mobility in London to 65% of its pre-pandemic baseline, swelling time spent at home. London’s mobility tracked a similar decline to Paris and New York City, all hugely reliant on public transport
Easing lockdowns and good weather slowly led to a mobility recovery through the summer and early autumn, but it sharply declined again after November’s Lockdown 2.0. The mobility decline was greatest in the City of London, which is more acutely affected by working from home
Each nation in the UK diverged slightly from September due to varying local policies adopted by England, Wales and Scotland to address their public health crises. Notably however, Lockdown 2.0 did not cause mobility to fall to the same degree as late March
Mobile growth improved very marginally to -3.6% this quarter as roaming revenues were harder hit and competitive intensity bounced back, but usage recovered from the lockdowns in Q2 and cuts to intra-EU calls were annualised.
Italy’s fortunes took a turn for the worse as roaming hit particularly hard and Iliad resurged. After a spate of downgrades to the outlook last quarter, there were some tentative upgrades in Q3 although the tone remains cautious.
The diminished drag from roaming is the primary positive driver from here. Although lockdowns of some degree are in place in Q4, their impact will be less severe than those in Q2.
The US Department of Justice antitrust case against Google alleges an illegal monopoly in search and search advertising in their home and largest market.
The lawsuit targets Google's control of the Android mobile operating system and exclusive revenue share agreement with Apple, which the EU prohibited in 2018, a decision that Google has appealed.
Alongside antitrust enforcement, legislative initiatives in the EU and UK will create an ex ante antitrust framework for relations between “gatekeeper” platforms and their users and customers, which the US Congress has yet to emulate.
There are some reasons to be cheerful about Vodafone right now—small nuggets of encouragement in its H1 results and the prospect of some market repair in the UK. Annual in-contract price rises of CPI + 3.9% across the UK mobile sector could provide very valuable support.
German fixed momentum is a low-light of its H1 results with growth of just 0.6% in spite of heightened broadband demand and in contrast to the 5% growth rate of the Liberty Global assets at time of acquisition.
The IPO of Vodafone’s towers business remains imperative to maintaining its leverage targets and dividend. We estimate that it will need to sell at least 30% of equity and realise a hefty multiple in challenging market conditions.