Consumer expenditure on recorded music continued its decline in 2014 by about 6% to $18 billion, as purchasing of download-to-own (DTO) albums and singles passed its peak in 2013, adding to the ongoing decline in total sales of CDs that started a decade ago Streaming is now the only growth story left for the industry, and it has a global footprint, being embraced by developed and emerging markets alike, unlike purchasing The US phenomenon of rapidly rising revenues from ad-supported audio streaming services such as Pandora and music video streaming on YouTube is quite unique as other markets currently lack the potential for online advertising
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas revealed the ‘next big thing’ for consumers to be products embodying the Internet of Things (IoT), controlled from the smartphone or the vehicle Wearables like fitness bracelets are already selling well in the UK, amongst the largest per capita markets for consumer electronics, and next up is the launch of Apple’s smartwatch Building out the smart home is the focus of the current wave of devices imbedded with sensors on show at CES 2015, with apps developed on platforms supplied by Samsung, Google and Apple
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus drove Apple’s most extraordinary quarter ever, with the company’s position in the smartphone market improving on all fronts: explosive growth in China, rising market share in the US and a rising average sales price.
By contrast, iPad sales continued to decline in spite of the iPad Air 2’s release, suffering from cannibalisation by the phablet-sized 6 Plus and saturation in developed markets. Apple has a strategy to revive sales, which may bear fruit later in the year.
A slate of new products is coming this year, led in the spring by Apple Watch. The question is, will Watch be a significant new source of profit or just a way to protect the iPhone’s dominant position in the smartphone market.
Sky plc, the coming together of BSkyB, Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia, has enjoyed an excellent start, as adjusted H1 2015 figures delivered a 5% increase in revenues versus a 3% increase in costs, resulting in EBITDA growth of 7% and with free cash flow up by 25%
The strong financial results were accompanied by strong subscriber growth figures, especially in the operations covering Austria, Germany, Ireland and the UK, while all markets showed large reductions in churn, reinforcing confidence in the strategic approach of Sky plc
It is too early to assess Sky’s delivery of its target group synergies. Individually, the former BSkyB and Sky Deutschland markets may be showing much stronger subscriber and product growth, but they also look to be more exposed to risk over football rights, while Sky Italia has more going for it than may appear at first sight
2013 has seen yet another year of strong growth in consumer adoption of mobile devices and screens adding to the challenges facing traditional media. Press and radio have long been affected, but television is now starting to feel the heat
BT and Sky’s contest for premium pay-TV sports rights has intensified. August saw the launch of BT Sport, while BT’s acquisition of the European football rights in November was a clear statement of intent, spending half of Channel 4’s total programming budget on approx. 200 hours of content
The UK has seen buoyant advertising growth of around 4% in 2013, with similar growth expected in 2014, in the context of the strongest economic recovery in Europe
Apple’s two new iPhones both secure its grip on the high end (for now) and extend a cautious toe into (slightly) cheaper waters. They will not deliver a step change in global sales growth, but should deliver solid performance
9m unit sales at launch are impressive, but 200m updates to iOS 7 (double last year’s figure) point to the continuing strength of Apple’s ecosystem and its ability to deploy innovative new features
We continue to believe there is room in Apple’s portfolio for a $350-$450 phone without weakening Apple’s quality of experience or brand positioning, but this is clearly now off the agenda for another year
A cheaper iPhone has been discussed almost since the original launch in 2007, but we believe costs have fallen and the market developed to the point that it now makes sense for Apple to offer a $200-$300 (unsubsidised) model.
We see a positive but fairly small financial impact on Apple. The key benefit would be defensive: by extending the ecosystem and preserving iOS as developers’ first choice, Apple would secure the whole portfolio.
We believe a well-executed and distributed $200-$300 iPhone would sell double-digit millions of units – a significant challenge to Android OEMs and Google. However, the US market’s pricing structure might limit the impact there.
By the end of 2013 there will be more iOS and Android devices in use than PCs. Google is using Plus and Android to reposition itself to take advantage of this, extending its reach and capturing far more behavioural data
We believe a helpful way to look at Google is as a vast machine learning project: mobile will feed the machine with far more data, making the barriers to entry in search and adjacent fields even higher
For Google, Apple’s iOS is primarily another place to get reach: we see limited existential conflict between the two. However, mobile use models remain in flux, with apps and mobile social challenging Google’s grip on data collection
On 28 June, News Corporation split into two companies:
• 21st Century Fox will consist of the TV and entertainment assets: Cable Network Programming, Fox Filmed Entertainment, Television, Sky Italia, its 55% stake in Sky Deutschland and its 39% stake in BSkyB.
• New News Corp will consist of the publishing assets (Dow Jones, The Sun and Times/Sunday Times, the New York Post, News America Marketing Group, the Australian newspapers and Harper Collins), as well as Fox Sports Australia, the digital education business Amplify, a 61.6% stake in digital property business REA Group Limited and a 50% stake in Australian pay-TV operator Foxtel.
The split partly reflects industry trends. Over the last five years, a number of media conglomerates, including McGraw-Hill and Time Warner, have separated low growth, low multiple publishing assets from higher growth parts of the businesses in order to optimise valuations and management focus.
This report provides a breakdown of the divisions within the two new companies and analyses their growth prospects.
Germany’s fixed line market is in state of flux as Liberty Global and Vodafone, the third and fourth largest players respectively, are reportedly engaged in a bidding war for Kabel Deutschland (currently number two).
The Vodafone bid would offer the most direct cost synergies, but this would be at greater execution risk. The Liberty bid would finally reunify most of the German cable sector, but would consequently need stronger undertakings to get anti-trust clearance.
Either merger would create a strong number two triple play operator, increasing competitive pressure on Deutsche Telekom and Sky Deutschland.