The European mobile market had a rare quarter of solid improvement in Q3, with reported service revenue growth improving by over 2ppts to -4.7%, helped by a 1ppt improvement in regulated MTR cuts (which have now dropped to near zero) and a 1ppt improvement in underlying growth

The improvement appears largely driven by improved pricing trends, with the improvement in Italy particularly strong. However we feel that pricing is still in general in a fragile equilibrium, with the potential longer term structural improvements - consolidation and network focus - yet to be made

Consolidation has certainly progressed, but more in-market mobile deals need to be made, and while current levels of investment are encouraging, with accelerating data volume growth also encouraging, they will take some time to have an effect at the consumer level

European mobile service revenue growth improved by 0.5ppts to -7.2% in Q2 2014, but all of this and more was driven by a reduced regulatory impact; underlying growth has been stuck at around 6% for the last four quarters, with progress in some areas consistently being countered by further pricing pressure

Industry consolidation has progressed to some extent, but would have had little impact in the quarter. Further in-country mobile/mobile mergers are more than likely but uncertainty driven by the changing European Commission may be delaying decisions to move forward

The UK example shows that consolidation is not necessary for market repair, but in the present environment the smaller operators in continental Europe have every incentive to be as disruptive as possible to encourage their acquisition, so further mergers cannot come soon enough

Apple has fulfilled its promise to roll out innovative new products this year, launching Apple Watch into the nascent wearables market and Apple Pay, a new mobile payments service, as well as moving the iPhone into ‘phablet’ territory.

The larger-screened 6 and 6 Plus should revive growth in iPhone sales and ASP, as well as providing another variable to compete in the mid-tier handset segment; Apple Pay further enhances Apple’s lock on its customer base.

Apple Watch’s likely impact is harder to discern; to date sales of smartwatches have been lacklustre but although Apple’s offering is the most commercially viable yet, it still feels like a solution in need of a problem.

European mobile service revenue growth improved to -7.6% in Q1 2014 from -9.0% in the previous quarter, but most of the improvement came from a drop in the regulated MTR cut impact, with underlying growth only improving 0.2ppts

This is in spite of continued improvements in GDP growth and the highest level of consumer confidence in six years, confirming that the often-blamed economic conditions actually have been having little impact on the market, with competitive intensity the real cause

For this very reason, the approval by the EC of in-market mergers in Germany and Ireland has been warmly welcomed by the industry and investors. Our view is that market repair is dependent on a change of attitude of the incumbents towards long term investment and away from chasing short term subscriber share via price discounting; consolidation may well help with this, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient

Amazon has entered the increasingly crowded digital entertainment TV device marketplace, one which could be strategically more important for the ecommerce giant than tech rivals Apple and Google

The frictionless integration of entertainment and ecommerce on TV represents a bigger consumer milestone than competitor services are offering, and Amazon’s brand has huge appeal, though at present it has less market traction for streaming than it does for other products

Content owners and broadcasters remain the real TV gatekeepers, with integration of TV and digital a service-level pipe dream for now, and so Amazon will likely have to accept being one of many, rather than the runaway winner as it is in books

European mobile service revenue growth again disappointed in Q4, dropping slightly from -8.9% to -9.1%, with underlying revenue growth dropping a little further from -6.0% to -6.3%, again reaching a record low

There had been hopes that improved GDP growth would drive a volume rebound, that price declines would start to annualise out, and that declining out-of-bundle usage would wane in its impact as this usage declined. In the event, ongoing price competition from smaller operators, MVNOs and quad play offerings, combined with surging use of OTT communications platforms, have dominated trends

In the medium term, the development of 4G and Vodafone’s Project Spring may bring some much needed network differentiation back to the market, allowing pricing power to return to the larger operators. However, it will be 2015-2016 before these factors come into play: in the short term, the main source of optimism is consolidation

UK mobile market service revenue growth improved on both a reported and underlying basis by 1.2ppts in Q4, a very welcome result after six consecutive quarters of declining underlying growth. Reported revenue is still in decline, at -1.6%, but it is the most modest decline among larger European countries, and compares to -5.0% in early 2013 EE is still leading in 4G coverage and performance, with around twice the coverage of its nearest rivals of basic 4G, double speed 4G now covering around 30% of the population, and plans for quadruple speed 4G to launch in 2014. Vodafone may prove the biggest network challenger going forward, with plans to increase capex as part of its Project Spring initiative Maintaining (or increasing) the current level of pricing is key to the industry returning to revenue growth in 2014. We would note that the smallest operator, H3G, is fairly unlikely to return to being a price discounter and put pressure on market prices, leaving the onus on the ‘big 3’ to stay disciplined, with a small but significant risk from SIM-only MVNO offers gaining more traction

Explosive growth in take-up of smartphones and tablets means that the effective size of the internet will increase by several multiples within the next few years. This transformation in scale comes with a major change in character and operating dynamics, creating new opportunities and revenue streams.

Twitter is unique amongst social apps: it gives new users a blank canvas in which they can (and must) create their own social network reflecting their own interests, hence building an ‘Interest Graph’, but onboarding new users remains a challenge.

Revenue at Twitter is now on a $600 million annual run-rate, scaling rapidly since the introduction of ‘native ads’, and seems set for further growth: the key question is whether it can achieve breakout user growth and mass market scale.